


In the Night

by IBrokeBad



Category: Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Depression, Dreams vs. Reality, Family, Friendship, Romance, Sexual Tension, but i promise there's gonna be light moments, eventual angry sex, hallucination, like seriously this is angsty, then eventual happy sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2019-06-22 00:50:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15570090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IBrokeBad/pseuds/IBrokeBad
Summary: After the death of her fiancé, Sam, Elena is forced to confront the many secrets he'd kept from her and his two best friends. As if the situation isn't tough enough, Sam's mysterious older brother Dean comes back into town, and with him a ticking time bomb of complications set to change everything. Meanwhile, Elena must come to terms with her grief and the strange bond she has with Dean . . . and sometimes that can only be done in the night.A loose retelling of the film Catch and Release.





	1. Haunt

_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;_  
I _lift my lids and all is born again_  
_(I think I made you up inside my head.)_

-  **"Mad Girl's Love Song" by Sylvia Plath**

* * *

 

Elena sits cross-legged on their bed. It's pale green comforter is now layered with her shed funeralwear. She clutches her late fiance's pillow and breathes in the smell of pine that always seemed to follow him.

The funeral had ended two hours ago and she's still here in her mismatched underwear and the fuzzy socks that Sam had bought her last week.

Her ears strain against the void that he'd left in the apartment. Perhaps if she's quiet enough she'll hear him.

But no. There's not a sound, though something still lingers. A shadow of him haunting her, dripping from the ceilings and walls and sweating from the floors.

"Elena!" Cas calls from the kitchen, his voice an assault on the silence she'd carefully constructed. Muffled footsteps plod around outside the room, increasing in volume until they arrive at the bedroom door. He clears his throat. "Elena? You're, uh, a little quiet in there. Are you okay?"

Elena breathes out a soft laugh. Translation: _Just checking if you tried to off yourself on those sleeping pills I saw on the nightstand earlier._

Cas had been the first one to call after Sam's death. His voice had arrived through the phone gently, careful lest any sudden force of volume might shatter her. He had told her how sorry he was. Repeatedly. As if saying it enough times would make her feel better. She'd told him to stop apologizing so much and he'd said he was sorry again.

Then his tone had shifted to cradle her, promising to help with the funeral arrangements. The family phone calls. The money. He'd even offered to let her move back into the house they'd all once shared in their early college years since she most definitely can't afford the rent for the apartment she and Sam have, or rather,  _had_ together.

"I'm fine," she says, running a hand back and forth over the pillow.

The door nudges open and Cas enters, crystal blue eyes sharp and concerned. "If you want I can help you pack - oh  _shit_ I am so sorry -"

Those baby blues widen to a comical circumference and he yanks his gaze from her so fast she's sure he gets whiplash. He's turned away but she can still see the deep red flush of his cheeks.

Elena snorts. "Relax, I'm not naked."

"Not funny, Elena," he grumbles.

Elena stands, setting the pillow down on the bed. Making her way to the closet, she throws over her shoulder, "If you're going to be weird every time you catch me indecent you're gonna have to stop accidentally walking in on me."

Cas face grows redder, as he recalls their first meeting. Elena snickers before disappearing into the closet. She'd been friends with him long before he had introduced her to Sam. Cas had been a resident at the hospital while she was interning, and had walked into the locker room to reprimand one of his interns. He'd charged in shouting only to find Elena there instead, half-dressed. They've been best friends ever since.

"Have you decided what to do with his things?" he asks, coughing.

"No," she says, tugging on a t-shirt and jeans. "I'll have to sort through it all."

"I'm sure the company'll want all his work files."

Elena hadn't even thought about that. She'd been mostly focused on his more intimate things. Clothes. Books. The adorable collection of joker cards that he'd been working on since he was eight.

 _God_ , she thinks. His toothbrush still leans against hers on the bathroom sink.

The thought of throwing it away seizes her so violently she starts to feel lightheaded. That seems to be the only thing she feels these days. She can feel Cas' eyes on her, searching her face for the sadness that had been alarmingly absent during the funeral.

" . . . and I noticed Dean stuck around for a while," Cas is saying, still watchful. "He just stood in the corner of the room the whole time not talking to anyone. Kai thinks he wants money or something but -"

"Where is he now?"

"Dean?"

"Kai."

"Same place you left him. Passed out in the living room."

The next person who had called her after Cas was Kai, his sarcastic-as-hell housemate who she'd known for probably a year now. Elena had answered the phone to him already mid-condolence, saying, "-shit, Elena . . . I mean . . . I mean  _shit_."

"Yeah," she said. "Shit."

When he realized that she had nothing else to say he quickly filled the silence with less weighted words. As if today were an ordinary one. He relayed that morning's story of how Cas had burnt his tongue on fresh coffee.

Elena had laughed, surprising them both. He'd gone uncomfortably quiet on the other end of the line, fearful of breaking her brief moment of levity.

The silence had already stretched far too long and it irritated her that even Kai, the friend she'd counted on to be blunt with her, was already a different person. Two hours after her fiancé's death, and grief - the kind that warps someone's personality the second it makes contact - had already claimed its first victim.

She'd hung up the phone out of sheer frustration and regretted it immediately. Especially knowing how Kai could be in situations like this. She'd guessed grief had taken her as well.

Elena had hoped to apologize to him today but, based on Cas's answer, he wouldn't be sober enough to accept it until a solid three more days minimum. Until then, Cas would be the only one to help move her into their house.

* * *

 

Parts of the house are precise and orderly, just as Cas likes it. The shoes are lined up by the door, straight and tidy. The food in the refrigerator is organized by expiration date. There are parts of the house that are clearly marked by Kai, resembling a teen's bedroom. Textbooks lay open and dog-eared on the kitchen table, the living room couch, and even leaning upright in the staircase. Various articles of clothing are strewn everywhere - a lone dirty sock near the television set or a stained hoodie hanging in the dining area.

She can almost hear Sam laughing, remembering the warring roommates they'd once been.

 _You know,_ he'd say to her.  _Sometimes I wonder why Cas still lets Kai in the house._

Then she'd smile and suggest,  _Surely for his charming personality._

Then they'd burst into laughter, recalling the time Cas had called Kai into the living room to lecture him on the importance of hygiene. The time Kai had put plastic wrap under the toilet seat. The time Cas was passed out after a party and Kai snuck a ring onto his finger. When Cas woke, Kai was wearing a matching one. Cas went the entire morning thinking that they'd drunkenly married sometime in the night.

They seem different now, though, Elena thinks.

 _It could be because of you_ , she says to Sam.  _Because you're gone._

But the rooms are exactly as Elena remembers them. The living room, then Sam's old bedroom attached to it, separated by a sliding door. There are two more rooms upstairs for the boys, and the kitchen looks lightly used compared to when she'd been living there, but otherwise unchanged.

As soon as all her boxes are piled into Sam's old room, Cas is tactful enough to give her space, shutting the door behind him and sealing her in silence, once again, in a Samless room waiting for his ghost.

* * *

 

Kai staggers in just before midnight, pulling an arctic cold and the stench of alcohol into the house with him. Elena is sitting across the couch flipping through the piles of paperwork that her lawyer had sent her when she hears his boots thud against the floor. Melted snow drips from his body.

"Hey," she says, attempting a smile. She scans his face, skimming across drooping eyelids and a frown. When he sees her, his lips twist into a smile.

"Oh, hey, Elena." He kicks off his boots but stuffs his hands into his pockets. "How're you doing?"

Elena shrugs, "Just going over some of this legal stuff."

He pulls a hand from his pocket and reaches down to pick up his shoes and place them in the lineup of shoes by the door. After straightening them, he meets her eyes again. "Yeah, if you were dead, Sam would've dealt with that stuff no problem."

Most people would cringe at that observation but Elena just laughs, dry but not without humor. "You're an asshole."

Kai breathes a laugh and moves to join her on the sofa. She can smell the bourbon on his breath as he stretches out, head in her lap with eyes closed. "Only with you."

From the living room doorway Cas snorts, "Yeah, right."

He steps into the room with a bottle of water in one hand and a bowl of soup in the other. When he reaches them he holds both out for Kai, "Sit up and eat this."

Kai cracks one eye open, a wry grin stretching his lips. "Gee, thanks mom."

Cas doesn't laugh. "You'll be sick tomorrow if you don't."

Kai raises and eyebrow, looking ready to challenge him when Elena nudges him with her knee. She gives him a pointed look, which he takes in with a disgruntled sigh. He rocks into an upright position and snatches the food from Cas. "You two aren't my parents, you know."

Cas and Elena exchange glances when Kai stands, bringing the food with him as he storms up the stairs to his room.

* * *

 

When her eyes close, Sam appears behind them. His ever-changing eyes. The way his fingers tuck his dark hair behind his ears. The way she'd find him half smiling at her from across the room. In her mind's eye he opens his mouth, trying to say something to her but no sound comes out. He seems to realize this, so he gives up. His eyebrows slant into a pained expression.

 _What? What is it, Sam?_  she asks him.

Sad eyes shine back at her and she waits. Waits and waits and waits for him.

Then, finally, he opens his mouth again.

_I'm so sorry._

She lies motionless in his old bed - the one he'd slept in as a young man. The one they once shared before they moved away.

 _Sorry for what?_  she asks.

But he's gone. His face is wiped from her mind and her eyes open.

The deep timbre of his voice still vibrates her ear drums, and she clutches a hand to her chest. It begins as a tiny pinch. Then it's a definite hand around her heart, squeezing. The pressure builds until it's unbearable, burning up her heart in a wild panic. Still, no tears come. Just pain.

God, she can't breathe.

The air gasps in and out of her harshly, violently, and she wonders if it's possible to die this way.

A loud thump startles her out of her panic. Her heart thunders, but the invisible hand releases it, and Elena jolts upright to listen. Despite the cool air, sweat soaks her body. It's pitch dark save for the glowing line of light beneath the closed bedroom door.

Another thump followed by the sound of shuffling feet.

Elena stands, grasping Sam's old bat that he'd kept at the bedside, and softly steps closer to the door. Steeling herself, she puts an ear to the wood.

A breathless, feminine giggle worms its way to her ears. It's quickly pursued by a man's voice shushing. The woman tries to giggle again but quickly cuts herself off with a throaty moan.

Elena lets out a breath of relief and rolls her eyes. It isn't Cas. He would never do this. At least not when he knows she's in the next room. It must be Kai and his girlfriend. Sighing, she goes back to bed, placing the bat back under it.

It isn't until several minutes later, when she's nearly half-asleep, that her door slides open with the deafening scrape of wood on wood. Back when they'd still lived here she'd told Sam a thousand times that thing needed to get fixed.

The giggles and the moans invade her quiet bubble with harsh, cringe-inducing volume. She flinches in the dark as the two figures, who are pressed together in a tight embrace, stagger towards her bed.

She opens her mouth to protest when they land on her mattress with an audible  _woomph_. The air leaves her body and her eyebrows shoot up in sheer horror.

Reflexively, she scrunches into the headboard to avoid making contact with the couple, who are still utterly oblivious to her presence. Whether it's out of disgust, awkwardness, or some warped sense of courtesy, she doesn't know. Maybe she should just wait until-

Okay, the woman's moans are getting ridiculous. Obnoxious, really.

The dim light of the living room shines in and reveals the man's bare, muscled back as he moves over the woman. The pair's movements become more erratic and Elena freezes, body glued to the headboard. She looks to the ceiling. Dear God help her.

It's when the man's hand reaches out, perhaps to grasp a handful of blanket or something, that he touches her. His hot hand wraps around her ankle.

Elena shrieks, snatching the bat and not hesitating to pelt his arm. He recoils with a shout, tumbling onto the floor and dragging the woman, who squeals in fear, down to join him.

" _Shit_ ," he hisses, getting to his feet. He strides jerkily to the bedside table and snaps on the lamp, shedding light on Elena's expression of disgust as she clutches the bat to her chest.

"You," Elena says. The light hits his face kindly, exposing his handsome face to her. Unfortunately, his face isn't one that she's at all fond of.

Dean Winchester's eyes widen, realizing exactly whose ankle he'd grabbed.

"Shit," he says again, but with less anger and more shame.

The woman, assuming the worst, scoffs in a fury before snatching up her clothes and storming out of the room, leaving Dean and Elena to boil in the uncomfortable silence. Elena stares, letting her judgement shine through her eyes unfiltered. He appears to feel it already without her help, eyes dropping away from her to the floor before he starts quietly:

"Look, I didn't-"

"Save it."

His eyes flick toward her. They linger on her eyes for a long moment before moving to the bat in her hands. Elena skims over his bare chest, then to look at the spot on his forearm where she's struck him. The skin is an agitated red. They meet stares again and she sees defeat in him. No effort in his wide eyes to defend himself.

She doesn't know what might have happened next if it weren't for Cas running into the room, hair ruffled and eyes weak from slumber.

"What's going on?"

Elena's jaw hardens. She removes her glare from Dean and says to Cas, "Ask him. Preferably away from my room."

"Sam's room."

Elena looks back at Dean to find the smallest shadow of defiance in his expression before he looks at her and the shame returns. His eyes dart away.

"What?" she asks.

Cas, sensing the direction of the situation already, places a hand on Dean's shoulder. "How about we talk about this in the morning, okay? There must've been a misunderstanding about who would stay in which room. You can sleep on the couch for now until we figure this out."

Dean gives him a pained nod. Without another glance at her he lets himself out.

When the door shuts behind him Cas begins immediately, "Elena, I am  _so_ sorry-"

"You're letting him stay here?" she demands, getting off the bed. "Are you kidding me?"

"I couldn't let him stay at a hotel alone. I'm sorry, I was going to tell you earlier-"

"Stop apologizing."

"-but we were all so busy, and to be honest I completely forgot I offered."

She runs a hand through her hair, exhaling heavily. "They were about to do it on Sam's old bed, Cas."

He cringes. "Yes, well. Kai's in Dean's old room now so he probably thought he could stay in Sam's - Jesus, were you going to hit him?" He gestures to the bat in her hand.

"I already did."

"You already-" Cas mutters a curse or two, rubbing a hand over his face. "This is like college all over again."

Elena smirks. She'd met Sam one year after she did Cas. When they started dating, the three of them had lived in this house. In those days they'd spent way too much time together, each annoyingly close to another too often. A bat to the arm would have been the tamest of fights.

She huffs. "Well, how long is he staying?"

"Lay off him Elena, he just came to drop off a few boxes of Sam's stuff and help us settle a few legal things-"

"How long is he staying?" she says again, this time louder.

Only a hint of his exasperation shows in the stiffness of his mouth as he asks, "Will you ever tell me why you hate him so much?"

" _How long_ , Cas?"

He just sighs and shakes his head, "I don't know." Then, seeing the look on her face, his eyes mark her significantly and he says, "He's his brother, Elena."

Elena softens only a little, then nods, willing herself to exhale the anger that had been coiling in her stomach. It barely works, but seeing the exhaustion on Cas' face stops her from further argument.

As he leaves her to sleep she slowly eases herself back under the blankets, which are still warm from the bodies that had been on it moments ago. Questions stir her brain. Sam's voice is gone now as she lies staring at the pitch black ceiling with eyes wide open. And as her thoughts tumble, the smell of Irish Spring soap and whiskey lies with her.

* * *

 

She has to give Dean credit. For the next three days after he'd brought in Sam's boxes, the most she sees of him is the back of his head as he retreats into the next room when he hears her coming. Occasionally she spots the side of his face as he shuts the door behind him on his way out of the house to the auto shop. His blankets and pillows are always folded and stacked neatly at the end of the couch. It's like he wants them all to pretend he doesn't exist.

For now, any reservations Elena has about him are pushed under the rug. After all, no one else in the house is even close to having as much of a problem with him as she does, and she's not about to explain to them why.

It's midnight on day four of their cohabitation and she's restless. Cas is on the night shift and Kai is who-knows-where, leaving her alone with Dean and her bleak thoughts. Cas had convinced the chief of surgery that she needed time off after Sam's death. Elena had argued that if that were the case, so did Cas. Unfortunately, he'd side-stepped her suggestion by pulling the rank card, which was something he only ever did when he was in full caretaker mode. He'd always feel guilty afterward, and Elena never had it in her to stay angry at him.

So now here she is, stuck at home with nothing to do. She'd unpacked all of her boxes already. The house was spotless since day two when she's cleaned the entire house, even Kai's room, much to his annoyance.

 _Sam's books,_ she thinks with a smile.  _I can sort through those_.

She cracks a smile as the smell of fresh pages tickles her nose. Books were a love that the two of them had always had in common. Over the years they'd created a shared a library, though they both had a separate one all to themselves. Elena had always wondered what he had stashed in his. She giggles, leaping from her bed.

_You almost look happier than when I proposed to you._

Elena pauses. There's his voice again, it's quieter than when she'd heard it the other night, as if it's coming from deeper inside her head.

Her response is teasing,  _I am._

She creeps out of her room and cracks the door open. No Dean. Grinning, she makes a beeline for the box labelled "books" and tears it open.

 _Aha,_ she snickers,  _how did I know you'd have Crime and Punishment in here?_

She can almost see him rolling his eyes.  _Because I'm a lawyer. It doesn't take a genius to guess it._

Elena digs through the box, approving of most of his choices. It's an even mix of classics and contemporaries. She's even surprised to find a few that are in her private stash as well. She picks up  _The Bell Jar_ , a book that has always been the most personal to her, and smiles.

 _I have this one too,_ she says.

There's silence.

_Sam?_

No answer. She clutches the book to her chest and wonders if he already knew she had it too. If he had bought it because he knew what it was to her.

Before the pain in her chest begins to swell again, Elena gets to her feet. She can't be doing this - having a full on panic attack every time she thinks of him. She'd never get through anything this way.

Mindlessly, she floats toward the kitchen, putting one foot in front of the other with the book still pressed to her chest. She doesn't feel it, but her hand reaches out to quietly push open the door to the kitchen.

It takes a second for her eyes to register Dean standing there. Out in the open. Elena gets the distinct feeling of coming across an elusive animal in the wild.

Dean seems to think he's alone because he doesn't look her way. He just stands there with wide, blank eyes staring at nothing in particular. She can't guess what he'd doing, as he doesn't seem to have any direction in his posture. He's just there. The sight is odd, but unsettlingly familiar to Elena for reasons she can't quite place.

She doesn't say anything. She supposes her tact or social awareness is just another one of the things Sam had taken with him.

When Dean's gaze rises to look at her she makes no effort to apologize for staring. He, however, looks startled, eyes widening and averting themselves instantly. Then, without a word, he strides past her, taking great care not to let their bodies brush as he passes and exits the kitchen.

* * *

 

Early the next morning Elena is awake, enjoying the silence of her room. This is something that she'd started doing recently whenever she woke up, coming to terms with the empty quietness of reality that always comes with the morning.

She takes a breath, thinking,  _Give me strength._

But Sam had left her when the sun rose.

She slides the door open. Immediately the smell of coffee dances through. At first she thinks it was Dean who made it until she finds him still fast asleep on the couch, shirt wrinkled and legs tangles in blanket.

"Elena."

She looks away from Dean's relaxed figure to see Cas standing in the kitchen doorway. His dark hair appears freshly combed and his face still holds the slight puffiness of sleep.

"I need to talk to you," he says quietly, gesturing for her to follow him into the kitchen.

She waits until the door is closed behind them to speak. "I thought you had work today."

He nods, "I took off to take care of some things." He offers her a seat at the table, which she takes, then moves to pour her a cup of coffee.

"Is it about Sam?" she asks. Dumb question. It's rare that they talk about anything else anymore.

Cas had kept his word and more when it came to the technicalities of Sam's death. Although Elena can't be more grateful for his help, a part of her knows he isn't doing it to help her. Taking care of everyone but himself had always been his habit when things got difficult.

Cas nods, handing her a steaming mug. "I spoke to some lawyers. It looks like his lack of a will means that everything he owns is supposed to go to his children or closest relative."

Elena takes the coffee with a sigh. "So everything - this house - is Dean's?" She isn't surprised. After all, years ago before Sam and Dean had their falling out, they had owned the house together. Still, it feels strange since she, Cas, and Kai have so many memories here. The fact that they can't even have a single square inch of it stings a little.

Just as the thought enters her mind, Dean nudges the kitchen door open.

"Oh," he says hoarsely, eyes flicking to Elena quickly before he flushes slightly. He clears his throat, noticing the gravity of their expressions. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt-"

"Sit down," Cas says with a smile. "This involves you too."

Dean hesitates, looking at the two seats available to him - one next to Cas and the other next to Elena. He clears his throat again before settling into the one by Cas. Underneath the table Elena feels both her and Dean actively trying to avoid each other's legs like same-charged magnets.

"Okay," Cas starts, looking Dean in the eye. "The lawyers are saying that, because Sam and Elena never actually married,  _you_ are technically the inheritor of all of Sam's belongings."

Dean's eyes widen a fraction, surprised, before he says, "Oh."

Elena scans his face for any tells to leak through. But there's nothing that even hints at interest in the money or the house. She even sees a note of panic in his eyes as they slide from Cas to Elena. When their eyes meet, Elena becomes even more aware of how little they'd actually done that. Her brain had held onto mere impressions of his face but now, as she sits directly across from him, she sees everything. The angle of his cheeks and jaw. The sharpness of his stare. As much as she hates to admit it, her memories do him an injustice.

Not only that, but it also hits her how little she actually knows the man she'd been sharing oxygen with for the past several days. Has he not cried, like her? Or had he cried the first day, like Cas? Are he and Sam similar at all, or are they complete opposites? Why is he still here? What does he do in the night?

Dean clears his throat, nodding at Cas. "Well, I have to head to the shop. I'll, uh, see you guys later."

As Elena watches him go she can feel Cas' eyes on her. "Are you okay?"

_Huh. He's early today. Usually he doesn't ask until after I finish my first coffee._

"Great," she replies. "Have you seen Kai at all?"

He sighs and shakes his head. Immediately, his posture slumps. "Not since Friday."

Elena's eyebrows lower, "That's longer than usual."

He nods, blue eyes shining. "He just misses Sam. You know how he gets about people leaving him."

She thinks about Kai constantly disappearing. Cas' unending workload. The way Dean looked as he stood with blank eyes in the middle of the kitchen at midnight. The way she speaks to Sam in the night when his voice whispers to her.

Elena looks at Cas with a sad smile. "Yeah. I guess everyone gets weird in one way or another when someone leaves them."

* * *

 

_Elena._

_Mmmnh._

_Elena, I'm sorry._

_Sorry for what?_

An insistent ringing wakes her. She groans, the sound slicing violently into the silence of the night. Elena glances at the clock. It ticks just past midnight.

She listens as the phone - probably Dean's - continues to ring, hoping that as soon as it goes to voicemail that that would be it. But no such luck. The peaceful quiet returns for a wonderful three seconds before the bells begin clanging again.

" _Urrrrggghhhh_."

By the caller's third try Elena's patience is worn and she yells through the walls, "For the love of all that is good, PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE."

She hears shuffling on the other side of the wall but the noise doesn't cease. Elena peels herself from the comfort of her bed, flicks the light on, and rips the door open.

Dean is sitting up on the couch, half-delirious from sleep. He looks up at her groggily, flinching at the light she lets into the room. His voice is gruff when he says, "Not my phone."

It takes a second for her brain to register the statement. She listens for the source of the grating sound, her head throbbing. It doesn't take long for her to realize that it's coming from one of the boxes stacked in the corner of the room.

Dean seems to realize this at the same time because he straightens, then clears his throat, "Actually, Elena, that might be mine after all."

She meets his eyes. That's the first time she's ever heard him say her actual name and he'd just used it to lie to her.

She lifts an eyebrow. "Those are Sam's boxes."

Dean swallows, his green eyes blinking deliberately. "I must've dropped my phone in there when I packed them - ELENA, DON'T-"

They both lunge toward the boxes at once but Elena, having been closer to them, gets there first. She finds the phone easily as its light flashes, demanding their attention. Dean's hands grab at hers, very nearly knocking the device from her fingers if not for her fierce, frightened determination. Soon they're wrestling on the floor skin on skin, making far more contact with each other within thirty seconds than they had in over a week of living together.

Somehow, Elena manages to roll away from him and smash the answer button.

"Hello?" she answers, putting the phone to her ear.

Dean, on his knees on the floor next to her, rubs his face with one hand muttering, " _Son of a bitch_."

But the voice on the other line is what causes her blood to run cold.

"Sam?" A woman's voice asks. "Sam, is that you?"

Out of sheer panic, Elena hangs up. A sensation of intense, shuddering shock passes through her as her trembling hand lets the phone fall from her fingers to the floor.

She can feel how wide her eyes are when they connect with Dean's guilt ridden ones. He searches her face carefully, as if wary of a bomb about to go off.

"Elena," he tries. "Are y-"

"Don't ask if I'm okay."

Dean presses his lips together, watching her for a moment longer before saying, "Actually, I was just asking if you were going to leave so I could sleep."

She almost laughs but her anger at him flares forward. "You know something."

Dean stands, avoiding her eyes. "Look, I forgot there was a phone in there when I packed it-"

Elena's eyes widen, "Oh my God. That's why you're still here, isn't it? You're cleaning up all the shit he left behind - the money, this woman, and - shit, even  _me_ -"

"Elena stop," he says, hurrying forward. His hands look like they're about to reach for her but he seems to think better of it, dropping them back to his sides. "That phone means nothing."

"Why would he keep it hidden from me?"

"Could just be a work phone."

"That women call at one in the morning?" Her eyes plead with him and he looks away. "Dean, just tell me the truth."

Dean winces, but makes no attempt to answer. Elena shakes her head at him. "Unbelievable."

She snatches the phone from the ground and storms back into the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

 

The woman's voice refuses to leave her ears. Elena starts by staring at her number on the phone's screen, just looking at it as if the series of numbers would somehow rearrange themselves into the woman's name. Tell her who she is. If she's his girlfriend. Or worse, his wife.

The more she thinks about it the more her imagination charges on, thrusting images of Sam, sitting happily with a picturesque family inside a beautiful home in the suburbs. God, maybe Elena had been the mistress this whole time. Maybe he'd never planned on marrying her.

She lifts her hand to her face, examining the sparkling engagement ring.

Elena shakes her head, tempering her irrationality. No. Sam wouldn't do that. She knows him. He couldn't hide that much from her, not when he had always looked at her the way he did. Warm and kind. He loved her.

For some reason, as if to squash her optimism, her brain reminds her of the copy of  _The Bell Jar_ that she'd pulled from his stash. It sits under her bed along with the bat. Maybe he did have secrets.

She sighs. She's being ridiculous. Sam Winchester would never lie to her.

Determined and slightly appeased, she dials the number.

The woman picks up by the third ring.

" _Sam_?"

Elena clears her throat. "Who is this?"

" _Oh_ ," the woman breaths. The pause that ensues crackles with discomfort. After some hesitation she says, " _I'm Jessica_."

Elena swallows. "How do you know Sam?"

More uncomfortable hesitation. " _Who are you again?_ "

"I never said." Elena hadn't intended to be curt but raw anxiety starts to flare in her chest again.

" _Look_ ," Jessica says carefully, though her voice sounds compassionate. " _Sam promised me some money a couple weeks ago and I was just calling him to see about it. I wouldn't've bothered calling if he hadn't told me a million times that he wanted me to have this money. Now, I'm not asking for it or anything, I just got worried when he never contacted me._ "

"I see," Elena says again. Hundreds of whys raced back and forth around her brain. Why is he giving her money? Why did he tell her a million times? But the sharp point of Elena's "bitchfork" dulls at the concern and remorse in Jessica's voice. Jessica. God, why does she have to have a name? Why does she have to have a crack in her voice that makes her feel too real? Why, against all of Elena's hopes that she'd be easy to hate, does she sound  _kind_?

At her silence Jessica tries, " _Are you . . . his girlfriend?_ "

Elena almost laughs. "I was about to ask you the same thing; my fiance's sending you money for fuck's sake."

Then, both she and Jessica actually laugh. Elena, more at the sheer absurdity of this conversation and Jessica seemingly out of embarrassment.

" _Well, shit. Fiance_ ," she says, a smile in her voice. " _I . . . was his girlfriend. Like, way back in high school. He just wanted to help me because I've been struggling._ "

Yeah, that sounds like Sam. Jessica's emphasis on the past tense of their relationship seems genuine, but Elena still feels like there's more to this. Speaking of past tense, Elena lets out a heavy breath.

"I'm sorry, Jessica," Elena starts, the name feeling strange in her mouth, "but Sam's dead."

There was no nicer way to say it. She didn't want to break it to her slowly and excruciatingly like the E.R. doctor had. She didn't want pain to linger, waiting with its hand on this woman's shoulder.

The shock translates as a sharpness enters Jessica's voice, " _What_?"

Fluent in the language of grief, Elena is patient, waiting for the news to completely settle in Jessica's brain before she continues her line of questioning.

"It was a car accident," Elena clarifies. "A truck ran through an intersection and turned his car over. He died quickly."

She listens as Jessica's sniffles begin. Elena wonders if she shouldn't have said it like that. So cold. Like it doesn't hurt her too. But she finds that stating it clinically helps to distance herself from it. The distance keeps her safe. Keeps her sane. But at the same time, she wonders why this woman can cry seconds after being told of his death, but Elena has yet to cry once.

"Jessica," she starts again once the sniffles subside. "Why did Sam want to give you money?"

Perhaps it's the news of Sam's death, or perhaps it's the fact that Elena had shared a bit of herself with her, but Jessica sighs, seeming to surrender.

"Look, I'm sorry he hid it from you," she says, her voice still thick with tears and sadness. A feeling of absolute dread enters Elena as she braces herself for whatever blow she's about to endure. After a decisive pause, Jessica finally spits it out, "Sam and I have a son."

* * *

 

At first, Elena thinks she has herself under control. When she'd hung up the phone, her body felt oddly calm. She had been rather impressed with herself, actually.

But as the morning, then afternoon, creeps in, the more the thought plants itself into her brain to infect her. A  _son_. A whole person made from Sam and Jessica. A human being that Sam is supposed to be responsible for. The infection had spread, ruthlessly, until it possessed her entire body. It doesn't help that she hadn't been outside of the house in over a week. Soon enough she finds herself in Sam's old truck, pulling into Dean's auto garage, and nearly running him over as he speaks to a client.

Dean turns just in time to see her brake just inches away from him. He flinches, putting a hand on the hood to distance himself.

"Elena, what-?"

"What the  _fuck_ , Dean?" She jumps out of the driver's seat. She charges up to him until she's close enough to see those goddamn freckles and smell the faint sweat on his body. Ignoring his indignant customer, she hisses with force, "A son? He has a  _son_?"

Realization slaps the confusion off of Dean's face. His mouth opens and closes for a second before he finally settles on saying, "Elena-"

"Just listen and answer me this," she looks him straight in the eyes, feeling as if her anger were splitting her open and exposing every raw nerve for him to see. "Did you know?"

A short breath huffs out of him and he rips his stare from her to look at his client, who had been looking back and forth between him and Elena with alarm. "Excuse us for a moment." He gestures for one of his employees to take over for him.

His eyes return to her and he puts a hand out to usher her into the back office. She steps away from him before contact can be made and storms ahead. When they're in the office and the door shuts, the air is sucked from the room. Dean makes no move to turn the lights on, as if the darkness could keep him from seeing the ugly reality that's about it hit him. The only light streams in faint slivers from between the window blinds.

Elena takes a breath, then repeats, "Did. You.  _Know_?"

He passes a hand over his face and through his hair. He meets her wild eyes, searching them with a pained expression. "Yes."

Two strides bring her close enough to swing her arm and slap him. It's hard enough to hurt but he just stiffens and takes it. The pressure in her chest builds, threatening to crush her lungs. She's ready to strike him again but he catches her hand this time.

"Elena, stop." His fingers grip her wrist firmly, but not tightly. For an insane second her eyes drop to his lips and she considers leaning in and crushing her lips to his maddeningly closed ones. To tongue his mouth open and let all of his secrets flow into her.

She shakes her head, "You had the nerve to make me feel guilty for ignoring you when this whole time you've been  _lying_. You let me think that he actually loved me. You let me think that Sam was a good person-"

"He was a good person," Dean says with force. "And he did love you."

"If he did, he should've just told me. I'm not some crotchless Barbie doll who doesn't know where babies come from and still thinks Ken is a virgin."

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" he asks, looking both defensive and bewildered. His hold on her arm loosens and she pulls her hand from his.

"I would have understood, Dean," she says through her teeth. "Fuck. That was always Sam's problem. He always wanted to protect me from things I don't need to be protected from."

At that, the corner of his mouth slips upward just a little. "Yeah, you definitely don't need protection."

Elena's eyes drop to the cheekbone she had struck where a red splotch is beginning to form. She thinks back to how they met several nights ago and blushes. "Maybe you just need to stop giving me reasons to hit you."

"Fine, but you have to admit that the bat was a bit much," he says, the smile hiding behind his words surfacing.

"Dean," she says, stopping this line of conversation before she can be caught by his charm. "How old is he?"

He sobers and meets her eyes gravely. He searches her face for any sign of hysteria before saying, "Jess got pregnant when they were in high school. He's probably eleven or twelve now."

Elena nods, letting that sink in. Twelve. More than a decade. Almost half her age. It's only now that the age difference between she and Sam feels heavy on her shoulders. She looks up at Dean, finding his expression cautious. "Do you . . . know his name?"

Dean sighs, "Look, Elena, it's not my place to say this kind of stuff. If you want to talk about him, you should talk to Jess-"

"You made it your place the minute you arrived here," she says forcefully. "And I know I'm not his mother. I know that. But please, I just want to know-" she coughs, the pressure in her chest building again. Pausing, she looks away from him to catch her breath. She can feel his eyes on her. Watching her struggle. As soon as the pain in her chest subsides, Elena hurries to say, " I just want to know if he's like Sam."

Dean doesn't reply but he continues watching her with a conflicted look on his face. By now the red had left his cheek but a natural flush replaces it. It's hard to say whether it's from nervousness or the embarrassment of having been caught in a lie. He looks at her with a strange heat - one that Sam's eyes had never so much as flashed fleetingly for her. Dean's eyes are direct and cutting. So much so that Elena nearly shies away from it.

"I'm sorry, Elena," he says, voice low. "I am so sorry about all of this."

She hadn't expected that, and it softens her. There, standing in front of her with misery written plain on his face, is a man who is doing everything he can to save everything his brother left behind. She lets out a short breath, wincing at the pressure still sitting in her chest.

"He was your brother," she says. It comes out awkwardly, almost sounding like an accusation.

But Dean raises his eyebrows in surprise, as if he hadn't expected anything less than another blow to the face. "Yeah. He really was."

 


	2. Crave

 

 _i carry your heart with me(i carry it in_ _  
_ _my heart)i am never without it(anywhere_ _  
_ _i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done_ _  
_ _by only me is your doing,my darling)_ _  
_ _i fear_ _  
_ _no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want_ _  
_ _no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)_ _  
_ _and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant_ _  
_ _and whatever a sun will always sing is you_ _  
_ _  
_ _here is the deepest secret nobody knows_ _  
_ _(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud_ _  
_ _and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows_ _  
_ _higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)_ _  
_ _and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_ _  
_ _  
_ _i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_

**“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” by E.E. Cummings**

* * *

Dean steps through the hall, looking for someone. His brain can't quite grasp who it is but he keeps looking anyway. Surely he'll know when he sees them. So he keeps searching. He’s barefoot, soles chilled by the frigid wood. The floors of their old house creak much louder under his feet than he remembers. 

 _I must be looking for Sam_ , he thinks.  
  
He moves swiftly towards Sam's bedroom door, that damn shoji one that catches whenever you slide it open. He remembers when Sam had installed it back when they were teenagers. He wanted to change everything about this house, make it new and fresh, but their father liked it the way it was. The door and his room were the only things Sam was free to change.  
  
Dean stops in front of the door, finding a light shining from behind it. Sam's shadow stands there behind the paper screen, facing Dean silently. Facelessly.  
  
When they were younger Sam would always trap himself behind that door. When he studied for school. When Dad was angry and shouted himself hoarse. When there was drunken mess in the living room because there was nowhere for the shouts to land and Dean was left to clean it. Even when their father left them alone Sam remained in his room, as if even Dean wasn’t a good enough reason to come out of hiding.

But Dean was happy to shield his brother from the darkness whenever necessary. If Sammy didn't get buried too deep into the dirt then someday, maybe, he could get out and fly away.  
  
Dean reaches a hand out to the door to get to him-  
  
Not me, Sam's voice tells him abruptly, making Dean jump. It sounds airy as it passes through the thin paper separating them. Her, he told Dean. You're looking for her.  
  
No, Dean says, I'm looking for you.

 _I'm always looking for you. But you always leave and take half of my heart with you._  
  
Sam tsks and says, Not this time. You're looking for her.  
  
_Elena_.

Dean's mind immediately speaks the name as if it had been desperately grasping it all this time, waiting to let it free. Dean looks up at his brother, wondering how Sam would feel about Dean thinking about his fiance. Though he's only a shadow behind a door, Dean studies him anyway, as if he'd find an answer in the darkness.  
  
He's relieved Sam can't see him. To see how his lies have surfaced on his face.  
  
Who? he asks Sam. I don't know who you mean.  
  
At that Sam laughs loudly, making Dean feel as if his eyes really could see through the door. Through him.  
  
You're a liar, says Sam with a smirk in his voice. You've known for a long time. Go to her before it's too late.  
  
Heat rises to Dean's cheeks as he asks, Where?  
  
You know where, Dean.  
  
With you? Dean guesses, moving to slide the door open.  
  
No. Stop lying, Dean. Just stop, Sam says firmly. Angrily. Then he repeats, You know where she is.  
  
_Outside_ .  
  
Dean backs away from Sam's room, feet bringing him to the front door. There's a harsh beating in his chest as panic courses through his blood. He'd wasted so much time lying and denying. He reaches the front door, dread crushing his insides because he already knows what's coming. What he's about to see. He wrenches the door open, letting in an arctic cold, and he faces a blinding white snow-  
  
The sound of vomit hitting the toilet bowl jolts Dean awake. It's still dark, but a bright sliver of light shines on him from the hallway bathroom. Squinting at it, he makes out a hunched figure.  
  
"I should've went with you," says Elena's voice from somewhere further into the bathroom. Her low tone sets butterflies flying into his stomach. He inhales deeply, steadying himself as he sits up from the couch. That sensation of dread still sits in his chest.  
  
In the bathroom, the hunched figure groans in annoyance but makes no attempt to form words.  
  
"You could've at least brought Cas with you," she goes on.  
  
"He's at work." The figure's voice croaks out, "And I don't need a chaperone."  
  
"Clearly you do. You know how you get."  
  
Kai merely grunts as Dean gets out of bed, warily making his way to the bathroom. "You guys okay?"  
  
The sick smell reaches his nose as soon as he pushes the door open and steps into the light. Kai is bent uneasily over the toilet with Elena standing next to him.  
  
Elena looks up to meet Dean’s eyes and his stomach performs a flip. Her presence had always made him a bit nervous but last week's visit to his garage hadn't helped in the slightest. Nor does the recurring dream that comes to him in the night. For years Dean had been running, sprinting really, from his long gone family, from his relationship with Sam, from everything behind him - but there's a quiet reflective quality in her eyes that always sends him stumbling. Always reminding him.  
  
_You know where she is._  
  
Her mouth is in a small frown now, but all the anger that her jaw once held for him has evaporated. In fact-

_Is she relieved to see me?_

"Kai just got home," she says, before he can contemplate her more. She has a habit of doing that, he’d noticed. Stopping people before they can look too closely.

Dean glances at the clock on the wall in the living room. 3:45. He turns back to Elena, whose gaze had moved back to Kai, worried, as she places a hand on his back. "I’m taking you to the emergency room."  
  
Kai, almost as pale as the snow outside, shakes his head silently, still bent over the toilet. Elena purses her lips and looks at Dean, "Alcohol poisoning. I need to take him to the hospital." After a minute hesitation, she asks, "Could you drive us? I need to sit with him in the back to make sure he doesn't choke."  
  
He nods quickly, "Of course.” _If we’re going to make an effort to be friends, now is as good a time as any._ _  
_  
She gives him a grateful smile that lasts all of a split second before she turns away and tugs at Kai's weak form. He struggles to rise from his knees and Dean rushes forward to help. After a pathetic attempt to resist, Kai falls into his arms.

* * *

  
  
“Everything’s fine,” Cas says for the third time. “He’s okay. I promise.”

She glances at Kai, who had fallen asleep soundly as soon as he’d been hooked up to fluids. Seeing him there in the hospital bed spooks her. It’s a sight that triggers a deeply rooted fear in her no matter what Cas says. Her fear is so pronounced that she has to cross her arms to hide how badly she’s shaking. She can feel Dean standing behind her, listening as she and Cas argue.

“He keeps doing this to himself, Cas,” she says, passing a hand over her tired face. “If he goes on like this I don’t know if his body can take it.”

Cas releases a heavy sigh, his blue eyes sparkling sadly. “I know. We just have to keep an eye on him.”

“How?” she asks a bit sharply. “We’re not his parents, we can’t ground him.”

Cas shakes his head, pushing his hands into the pockets of his pristine lab coat. “He’s just grieving. We have to take care of him and give him time. He’ll be back to normal eventually.”

 _NormaI?_ Elena scoffs. _There is no normal after loss._

“Look,” Cas continues, sensing her line of thought, “I know this is a sensitive topic for you but-”

She grimaces, “Don’t.”

“-you can’t expect people to be as used to grieving as you are.”

She glares at him, and to his credit, he doesn’t show an ounce of pity though this does little to lessen her irritation. She feels Dean’s eyes on her back and suddenly it’s as if she’s contained in the tiny hospital room. Contained and alone behind a glass while people study her.

“What are you trying to say?” she says flatly.

He sighs again, rubbing a hand over his tired face. “You know what I mean, Elena. You’ve been through this a thousand times. You know how to handle yourself. But Kai isn’t so experienced.”

 _A thousand times._ He makes grief sound like riding a bike. When you’ve done it once you can do it again. And again and again.

Several replies die in her throat. Concerned at her silence, Cas takes a step closer to her. “Elena-”

“It’s late. We should go,” Dean says abruptly.

Elena turns to find Dean standing at the foot of Kai’s bed with a clenched jaw. Stiff fingers tap at the bed’s footboard as his eyes flick from Cas’ face to Elena’s.

“We can’t leave him,” Elena says, gesturing to Kai’s sleeping figure.

“Cas’ll take care of him.” Dean’s eyes move back to Cas, this time holding a hint of agitation in them. She looks from Dean to Cas, who stares back at Dean with lowered brows. The energy in the room begins to suffocate her, so she huffs.

"Fine," she says, looking at Dean. "Take me home."

* * *

  
  
She crosses her arms, hugging herself as she and Dean walk wordlessly back to his car, their feet tapping against the parking lot pavement. Rock salt crunches beneath her boots and the moon glows above them. Dean tucks his hands into his pockets and faint clouds rise from the heat of his mouth as he breathes.

When they're settled inside the car, Elena clears her throat. "Thanks for driving."  
  
"It's no problem," Dean says, then smiles awkwardly. "But if he'd puked inside my car it'd be a different story.”

She laughs. It’s strained but she hopes it comes off as tired. She grapples for a subject to talk about as he pulls out of the hospital parking lot. It's then that she realizes that all she has to go on are a scorned brother's words and a single memory of when she met him last year. But she doesn't want to remember any of that.  
  
"So Dean," she says, her voice sounding a little too bright. "That girl the other night. Was she your girlfriend?"  
  
Dean shifts a little in his seat, eyes trained ahead of him. "Uh, no I met her at a bar."  
  
“Oh.” Elena nods, a small smile pulling at her lips. "How'd you do it?"  
  
A nervous energy sparks in him as he turns for a quick glance at her. "Do what?"  
  
She smirks, "Pick her up?"  
  
Elena stares at his face, finding a mix of both surprise and discomfort. He gives her another guarded look before bringing his attention back to the road. "I talked to her."  
  
She rolls her eyes. "About what?"  
  
"I don't know, the weather."  
  
She lets that sink in for a full second, then snorts. "Wow."  
  
"Wow what?"  
  
"All you have to do is talk to her about the weather and she gives you full access?" Elena can't help it. She lets out a crude laugh. The sound tilts the corner of Dean's mouth upward and loosens the tightness in his shoulders.  
  
"There was more to it than that,” he says defensively. "I made some jokes." This only makes her laugh harder. "What? Why are you laughing? I was charming as hell, okay?"  
  
She shakes her head, still laughing. "Spoken like a guy who's never had to work to get a girl in his life."  
  
"Oh come on, that's not fair. It takes a lot of practice to get to this level-"  
  
"You're killing me," she says with a pointed look.  
  
He flashes a smile in her direction and her heart comes to a full stop. She's never seen him look that way before, let alone have it directed at her. The fact that he hadn't had cause to smile at all recently saddens her.  
  
"Okay, fine." Dean says, oblivious to the clenching in her chest. "Tell me how you and Sam met. What kind of elaborate maneuvers did he use to get you to go out with him?"  
  
"It was at the library. Cas was friends with both of us, so he brought us together to study."  
  
Dean snorts, "That can't be it." He meets her look of confusion with one of disbelief. "You met Sam _studying_ ?"  
  
She blushes. "What's so weird about that?"  
  
He shakes his head. "It's just hard to believe that is the meeting that launched all the romantic crap Sam spewed for years."  
  
"What do you mean?" Elena asks, straightening.  
  
He gives her a wary smile. "Even when Sam and I weren't talking to each other I heard all about you." He pauses, considering his next words. "We have mutual friends, like Cas, who’d mention you a lot." His voice falters a little, almost sadly, before he flashes a smirk. "Once while Cas wasn't in the room I saw a text Sam sent him. ' _Which of these poems do you think Elena would like better?_ '"  
  
She giggles. "I remember that. He was so nervous right before he gave it to me."  
  
"Which one did he decide on?"  
  
She pauses. "I don't remember."  
  
His eyes study her for a moment, then turn back on the road. "It's okay," he says. "You can tell me."  
  
She winces, opens her mouth, then closes it again. She hates that about him. The way he can untangle her lies more easily than she can his.  
  
But eventually she sighs, “‘ _I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go you go, my dear_ ,’ and so on. Do you know it?"  
  
Dean's shakes his head. "It’s a bit heavy for what, a few weeks of dating?"  
  
Elena shrugs. "You know when you know."  
  
He makes a sour face that even she can see from the other side of the dark car.  
  
She shifts so she can face him fully, read him as he’s reading her. "You think it's bullshit."  
  
"I think a lot of things are bullshit."

“But you think love is especially bullshit.”

He looks thoughtful for a moment before saying, “I think people think they know when they know. But all they really know is how good it feels in the moment. Feelings pass.”

Her eyebrows lower. “Not always.”

He nods, an annoying, arrogant smile on his lips. “Always. Or they last long enough to turn into something else.”

There. Something that doesn’t taste like a lie or a watered down truth. He truly believes it.

“Just because they pass doesn’t mean they’re any less real,” she can’t help but argue, craving the high she gets from nudging at him. Making him spit out the truth.

He turns the car onto their street before shooting her a perplexed look. But she swears she sees the corner of his mouth twitch up.

“What?’” she demands.

“Nothing,” he says, amusement bleeding into his voice. “You’re just . . . not how I remembered you.”  
  
She pauses to consider him again. He really is very different from Sam, who had an optimism so potent that even Elena grew weary of it. But at the same time it kept her sane, especially when she started losing people. Now that bright light is gone, and she and Dean are two flies still buzzing around in the dark looking for it.  
  
Just as they pull in next to the house, a faint burst of orange spreads from the horizon. They'd arrived just in time to see the sun come up. The car idles and they remain still, looking out at the sun, savoring the precious few moments of darkness before the light bears down on them.  
  
Elena sighs, dreading the suffocating feeling that would return to her as soon as she steps foot into that house. When she places a hand on the door to exit the car, she’s aware of Dean repositioning beside her, as if he shares her uneasiness.  
  
"We could keep driving," he suggests lightly.  
  
She looks back at his face and can't keep the smile from her lips. His green eyes are intent on her. Careful. Hopeful.  
  
"Where would we go?" she asks.  
  
He shrugs, his expression matching her wistful one. "I don't know. Anywhere."  
  
"Okay," she says, and removes her hand from the door handle. Dean catches the movement, and Elena swears she sees a glint in his eyes as he presses a foot to the gas pedal.

* * *

 

They start going out on nights when neither of them can sleep. At first, they only drive around, seeing the town almost completely deserted under the black sky. Then they start getting drive-thru food and Elena learns how much Dean can eat. One night he puts back at least three burgers, fries, chicken strips, a milkshake, and still considers going back for more.

On the fourth night, Elena spots a twenty-four hour cafe that she’s never been to.

“Come on, I could use a hot drink right now,” she pleads as Dean drives past it. “Dean, it’s freezing out.”

He hesitates, bringing the car to a slow roll. At two in the morning there’s hardly any traffic to hold up. Dean steals a glance at her, finding wide eyes peering at him from inside of a much too large jacket that must’ve been Sam’s. She tucks her chin in but he can still see the pink of her nose.

He groans, “Fine.”

Elena grins. “God bless your soul, Dean Winchester.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he rolls his eyes.

After they park they hurry out of the frosty air and into the cafe. As soon as they’re inside they’re hit with the warm scent of fresh coffee. It isn’t until after her deep inhale of the rich smell that Elena notices how skittish Dean is. His eyes rake across the room every few moments, as if he expects someone to leap out, see the two of them together, and accuse them of some sort of unsavory crime.

But the cafe is empty except for the barista, who leans against the counter while hunched over her cell phone.

“Hi,” Elena asks with a smile, “Can I get a hot chocolate?”

The barista looks up from her phone and nods. “One hot chocolate.” She looks at Dean, “And you?”

“Black coffee,” Dean replies, fishing for his wallet.

Elena nudges him, “I got you.” She pulls out her wallet and hands the barista the payment for both of their orders. “And can I also get two donuts? One maple bacon and one powdered jelly.”

When she looks back up at him she finds a softness around his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says, seeming genuinely surprised. “How did you know those were my favorite?”

She shrugs, “I saw a box of them on your desk that time I slapped you.”

He laughs deeply, startling her and making her stomach flutter happily. “It’s good to know something good came out of that.”

When they receive their coffee and donuts they settle into a table near the Christmas tree, shrugging off their heavy coats and draping them over their seats. Elena watches him as he takes a careful sip of his steaming drink.

She scrunches her nose. “God, what are you?”

He glances at her then at his black coffee and laughs. “I’m a grown-ass man.”

“An ass-man?”

He’s unable to keep the goofy smile from his lips when he gestures to her hot chocolate, “You’re a child.”

Elena returns his smile. All she wants is to pull another smile out of him. It’s beginning to give her a high, making him laugh. She’s only had the honor a handful of times and she intends to increase that number exponentially.

“Oh shut up,” she says, “You’re the one who giggled like a little girl when Cas said the word “taint”.

Dean snorts, taking a bite of the maple donut. “Half the things that come out of that man’s mouth sound sexual.”

She pinches a piece off of the powdered donut. “The guy’s been dedicated to school and medicine for over a decade. His social skills are a bit off.”

He nods, his fingers tightening ever so slightly around his coffee cup. “Like what he said about you the other day.”

Of course she knows what he means. But she doesn’t want to talk about that. Not when he’s already smiling. So she just nods and says, “I guess so.”

He studies her face for a moment before continuing, “What did he mean by that?”

Elena takes a sip of her drink and carefully places the mug back on the table. She stares at the spot where the foam had parted for her mouth. “I suppose I’m a bit like you. I’ve lost family.”

She meets his eyes again, finding them cautiously blank. She smiles, “Cas likes to see me as some kind of tragic survivor. He keeps talking to Kai about me like I’m supposed to be a good example when really I’m-” she lowers her eyes to the table, where his hands are still wrapped tightly around his coffee. “I’m just as fucked up as anyone.”

Dean stares at her for a few moments with a small crease between his brows. “I’m sorry.”

“God,” she says with a laugh. “You have nothing to be sorry about.” She sighs, then tries to clear the weight from the air, “It’s nothing, I’m just whining-”

“No.” Dean’s eyes are steady and direct. “I’m sorry that you feel so alone.”

She freezes. “I didn’t say that.”

His eyes then flit over her face and her heart shakes in her chest. “You didn’t have to.”

They stare at each other for what feels like minutes when the barista interrupts them with a “can I get you two anything else?”

“No,” Dean says, not looking away from Elena.

Elena has to break eye contact. “No, thank you.” She offers the young woman her tip, which she accepts happily. She can still feel Dean’s eyes on her and it begins to grate at her nerves.

“What?” she asks as the barista steps away.

He presses his lips together before parting them to say, “You’re not alone.”

A warmth spreads from her chest to the rest of her body, his forest green eyes tearing her open. It feels dangerous. Too good to be real.

She frowns, “Why would you say that?”

Though his face is still mindfully blank, his words say more than his face ever can. Deliberate, and only communicating the barest of truths. “If you’re alone then so am I. We can be alone together.”

* * *

  
  
The next several days are a blur as they dig deeper into winter. The temperatures plummet outside, and there's no denying the corresponding shift inside the house.  
  
As it had been when he'd first arrived, Dean’s only company before and after work is Elena. This doesn't bother him as much as it used to and if he's honest with himself, he’d never been truly bothered by it, but rather the risk of their mutual grief exploding all over the place. He didn't think he could take that.  
  
But he learns that Elena processes loss much like he does. Slowly, quietly, and preferably without anyone's help.  
  
It doesn't take long for her to realize the same thing because she begins to skip the long, interrogating dinners with Cas in favor of a late night coffee with Dean. Or visiting Dean at the shop to "learn a few things" rather than going out drinking with Kai and his friends. This is when he discovers that she, in fact, knows quite a bit about cars because of a boyfriend she had in high school who owned vintage cars.  
  
This is also when he realizes that all that he thinks he knows about her is filtered through the eyes of the men living around her. Them and the memory of when Dean met her last year. But he can’t think about that now.  
  
So it happens slowly. Instead of accidentally coming across her in the kitchen or the living room, Dean starts searching for her. Settling into the space near her when he finds her. On the couch. At the kitchen counter. On the porch. For hours, they'll sit without a word. Only the occasional sound of her turning a page or him scribbling into the legal paperwork that he still hadn't settled breaks the silence.  
  
One night, instead of waking her up when she falls asleep on the couch next to him, he lets her rest a few moments longer. Her book slides from her fingers to the floor, pages bent, and he places a blanket over her. She stays there through the night.  
  
They wake up to the rhythm of each other's easy breaths and Dean realizes that, like him, this may have been the first good night's sleep she'd had in weeks. He allows the realization to sink into his chest only so deep before the morning light shines its spotlight on them, forcing his body from the warm haze. He's out of the room before his eyes get too attached to her.

* * *

 

One of her bowling shoes is killing her. She peers over at Dean’s shoes and smiles at the acidic green and pink with purple laces. Her amusement quickly becomes annoyance though as he steps around her with ease while she is left limping about. For a second she thinks about grabbing new ones but Dean has on that hilarious look of competitive determination as he eyes the bowling pins and she just can’t leave that. That and the way his smile looks under the Christmas lights twinkling around them.

“Are you kidding me?” he demands of the ball as it skids into the gutter. A red light flashes on their monitor, announcing the gutter ball. From the table, Elena grins as he sends multiple curses at it. They’re only a four frames into the game and it’s already clear that they’re equally terrible at it.

“Well, well. Looks like I’m about to become a champion,” Elena smirks, referring to her measly ten points on the scoreboard.

Dean scowls. “I’m telling you there are magnets in the balls and gutters.”

Elena stands from the table and approaches him at the start of the lane. “Watch and learn.”

He rolls his eyes and sits down at the table, grasping a handful of fries and stuffing them in his mouth. Taking a deep, theatrical breath, Elena steps, aims, and shoots. The ball rolls slowly down the lane, wobbling until it dances off to the side and into the gutter.

“Ha!” Dean snorts.

“Mine still made it further than yours,” she points out.

“This is ridiculous,” Dean says, standing from his seat to join her.

“You mean the fact that we’re failing at arguably the easiest sport in the world?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

She turns to offer him a clever retort when the pain in her feet flares and she sways slightly. His hands are on her arms immediately, balancing her. Her foot throbs but he smells like soap and french fries, so she supposes it isn’t so bad.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his joking tone instantly replaced with concern, eyebrows slanting together.

Elena laughs, leaning on him with one hand grasping the fabric of his hunter green shirt as she tries to remove the offending shoe. “I’m fine. This shoe’s just too damn small.”

His hands leave her, but instead of releasing her like she expects, he crouches down to help get the shoe off, leaving her hand on his shoulder for support. She’s about to protest because like hell is he touching her feet. Her mind keeps shoving forth the memory of his warm fingers grasping her ankle in the dark on that first night when he’d stumbled into her room with a girl in his arms. But before she can he already has the shoe off her and his hands are no longer on her foot.

“No wonder,” he says, flipping it around to show her the size with a half smile. “This one’s two sizes too small.”

She grunts some sort of acknowledgement because he’s at eye level with her crotch and she’s focusing on acting like he isn’t despite his warm breath against her jeans. Dean, however, seems to be completely unaware of it. In fact, he’s still talking about the shoe.

“It’s definitely that kid at the counter’s fault,” he says, shaking his head. “I heard you, you asked for size eights-”

Elena tries to carefully extract herself from him by placing the throbbing foot down. But it instantly flares in pain and she curses as she loses her balance again. Dean stands, catching her for the second time with a smirk. “You know, you’re incredibly awkward.”

Her heart stutters and she huffs. “Look who’s talking, gutter ball.”

He chuckles, gingerly putting his arm around her waist to help her waddle over to take a seat at the table. “That thing is definitely swollen. It looks like a sausage.”

“Is everything food to you?”

“I’m serious, look at it.”

She does. “This has to be the lamest injury ever - injuring my foot while bowling.”

He snorts, his fingers warming her skin through her shirt. “Not even. You were taken down by the shoe.”

She giggles as he helps her sit down, one warm hand at the small of her back while his other had somehow made it into hers, steadying her. His breath tickles the top of her head as she lowers into the seat.

The contact sends a shiver through her, one that strikes her core. It feels like a note ringing through her that she’s been trying to ignore for days. His chest is in front of her when she’s fully seated and she risks an inhale.

 _Fuck_. A shiver courses through her again as his familiar scent stops her breath at the base of her throat. Elena looks up to thank him only to find his hands releasing her and his eyes troubled.

“It’s my turn,” he says quickly, gesturing to the scoreboard. As he takes his turn, his ease with her retreats back behind his eyes, leaving Elena both confused and agitated. He maintains more space between them. Keeps eye contact to a maximum of one second before averting his eyes. They play two whole frames in silence before he speaks again.

“So Elena,” he starts, clearing his throat. “I hope you don’t mind that I invited a friend to hang out with us.”

Her true surprise doesn’t register on her face as she looks at him. “Of course I don’t mind.”

He nods, still not returning her look as he stares down at the rack of bowling balls, suddenly very focused on choosing one. “She’s running a little late because of the snow but she should be here in a few minutes.”

Her surprise deepens just enough to cut something in her. Obviously, there’s no rational reason to be upset about this. He has every right to bring friends over. She doesn’t own his time or company. But there’s something about the way he doesn’t meet her eyes that makes her want to curl back inside her room and lock the door.

Elena smiles with closed lips. “The more the merrier.”

By the time this friend arrives, she and Dean have finished a game and are three frames into another one. She walks in with frosted red hair down past her shoulders. It takes Elena a second to identify her as the woman he’d brought home his first night in town. The one he rolled half-naked into Sam’s bed with. An unwelcome pit forms in her chest.

Elena’s mouth pops open. “Oh. Hi.” She looks at Dean for an explanation.

“This is Anna,” he says, but his eye contact doesn’t hold.  

Elena’s stare slides from him to her. “Okay.”

Anna grins, pulling off her snow covered jacket before reaching for Elena’s hand and shaking it. “Dee explained what happened that night - about the mixup with the rooms. I’m so sorry about that. It’s so embarrassing.”

 _Dee?_ Elena raises an eyebrow at Dean, who still isn’t looking at her. She shakes her head, looking down at her now empty plate of fries. “Don’t worry about it.”

Anna laughs, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Can you believe I thought that Dee was some married guy who got caught by his wife?”

Elena joins her laugh, trying her best to sound as if she truly thought it funny. “Yeah, I’m definitely not his wife.” She looks at Dean again, who currently seems more fascinated with her sausage foot than the conversation that’s taking place. Elena purses her lips at his silence before finally asking, “Would you like to join our game, Anna?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to interrupt-”

“It’s totally fine,” Dean says, nudging her. Elena looks at him again, irritated by how not Dean he’s being. He clears his throat, “Elena’s sitting out anyway. She hurt her foot.”

Both pairs of eyes turn to Elena. Dean’s are unreadable while Anna’s are uncertain, like she’s just now sensing awkwardness between them. Elena makes an effort to smile again, “Right. You can go ahead and take my place.”

When Anna agrees, she quickly jogs over to the counter to get a pair of shoes. Dean waits silently and Elena glares at him. She doesn’t break eye contact as her mind reels back, searching for something she might have done or said that had triggered him to be so uncomfortable with her. She had thought they had been doing well considering how badly they started off.

He should just tell her if he has a problem with something. She respects him enough to give him space if he asks for it. To leave him alone if he wants her to. She gets it. But this? This is a slow knife. One that’s barely touched her yet, but she can feel it ready to pierce her skin.

Fury vibrates inside of her chest and she’s caught between anger and sadness yet again. And she hates him for it.

Dean brings his eyes to meet hers, forcing her thoughts to a undignified stop. When he finds her angry stare on him, his jaw clenches. They don’t speak, and for what seems like a long stretch of time everything around them blurs and falls to a hush. The unnecessary pop remixes. The rowdy teenagers a few lanes down. They sound like a faint breeze outside as Dean’s eyes darken and inject her with a heat that always seems to tame the cold permeating her body.

But it lasts for only a single beat. Then he turns away from her.

“I don’t really bowl,” Anna says as she returns to their station, picking up a green ball from the rack.

Dean chuckles, “Well, you’ve come to the right teacher.” Under different circumstances Elena might have laughed at this. Now she only frowns as Dean positions himself behind Anna as she stands in place with the ball. His fingers are on her arm, guiding her as she swings it back then forward.

“ . . . and release,” he says. She does, and the ball hurtles down the center of the lane. Elena sits back and props her foot up, watching silently. The ball crashes down the middle, knocking down every pin and putting an end to their losing streak.

* * *

 

Anna starts coming by the house after that. Dean invites her to movie nights, dinners, and often to stay over. Dean stops going on night drives and coffee dates with Elena. Any closeness that had been starting to develop between them screeches to a halt.

It isn’t that Elena doesn’t like Anna, because she does. Anna is nothing but kind to Elena and rather understanding of their circumstances. Elena even enjoys her company at times. But what truly hurts is that Elena can’t shake the feeling that Dean keeps Anna around as a shield - to keep someone between them.

She hates feeling this way, like she’d done something wrong but she can’t remember what. How every word between them tastes slightly bitter.

“Cobb is definitely awake,” Dean says as the movie ends and the credit’s slide across the screen. Anna had fallen asleep sometime within the film’s first act and now lies limp against his shoulder.

Elena turns to face him from the opposite end of the couch. The couch seems much wider tonight. “It doesn’t matter if he’s awake or asleep.”

“What?” Dean asks, incredulous. His voice rises in volume, causing Anna to stir a bit. Both he and Elena still for a few seconds before the young woman’s body relaxes back into slumber.

Dean sighs and lowers his voice to a whisper, “Of course it matters. That’s the whole point of the movie.”

“But either way, his wife is dead because of him and he’s been separated from his kids for years. He has to live with that feeling in his head.”

Dean gives her a long, searching look, as if trying to understand what’s in her’s. She tears her eyes away and brings her attention to the bottle of beer that she’d abandoned on the coffee table as soon as the movie had grown intense.

She picks it up and brings it to her mouth, letting the buzzing liquid slide warmly down her throat. As she swallows around the rim she feels Dean’s eyes on her and she looks at him, finding a deep frown.

She lowers the bottle and extends it towards him. “Do you want some?”

  
His jaw clenches. "I'm fine.” He gestures to Anna’s sleeping figure. “Don’t want to move her too much.”

“I got you,” Elena says, scooting closer. She holds the bottle to his lips, making sure he’s ready before tilting it.

His eyes are dark when he looks at her but he parts his lips, allowing them to touch where hers had just been. She pours some into his mouth and he swallows, licking his lips.

He clears his throat, but his voice is hoarse when he speaks, “Thanks.”

There is a tightness in his shoulders and legs as he turns away from her, watching the credits continue with determination.  
  
She regards him for a minute, contemplating her next words. "So I was thinking-"  
  
"Oh no."  
  
"- about Jessica."  
  
He shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back in exasperation. "But we were doing so well."  
  
Despite his irked expression, she pushes on. "I found her address in Sam's phone and I want to see her," she says. "Get to know her."  
  
His eyebrows shoot up. "Get to know her?"  
  
"Why are you saying it like that?"  
  
"Because it's a bad idea."  
  
"Why?" she demands. "Am I some dirty mistress who’s not allowed near her?"  
  
"No, of course not," he says, pained. "Look, Sam didn't tell you about Jess and her son because he wanted to keep everything clean and separate. But this - it's just messy. Why make things complicated?"

The tension in his shoulder muscles tightens even more, but he struggles not to move under Anna’s weight.  
  
Elena looks at him as if he's speaking an alien language. "Life _is_ complicated, Dean."  
  
He meets her eyes directly now, "I just don't want anyone to get hurt."  
  
But she sees it. A lie, plain on his face. She may not know which lie, but her detector catches it.  
  
“Why are you doing this?” She asks, her voice this close to breaking. “I thought we were-”

She stops, not letting the words past her lips. He makes her regret the warmth that she let herself feel. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Heat rises to her cheeks as she thinks of all the warning signals that she’d ignored..

“Are you hiding something from me?” she asks. But she already knows. This is just a courtesy question, one that gives him the chance to tell her.  
  
He scrubs a hand over his face. "If you want to see her, I can't stop you."  
  
Elena takes a breath, "Dean-"  
  
"I'm tired," he says, tone clipped.  
  
She blinks, hurt whipping across her face but just as quickly disappearing.

"Fine," she says, rising from the couch and turning away from him. The cold air hits her. "Goodnight."  
  
He doesn't watch as the sliding door shuts behind her.

* * *

  
  
Dean isn't in the house this time. He's outside already, stepping through snow. Wet cold seeps between his bare toes. Grasps at his ankles.  
  
He's looking for someone. He doesn't remember who.  
  
But he does. _Stop lying. You know, Dean._  
  
He'd forgotten that lying doesn't work here. Not in the night.  
  
The snow comes down a bit harder, wetting the top of his head and dusting his shoulders. He trudges on, squinting through the haze of freezing white. He knows who he's looking for.  
  
_Elena_ .  
  
The moment his brain thinks the name into existence, she materializes in front of him. Just as he remembers. She's in purple pajamas, dark hair framing her face as she lays in the snow like an angel, arms out at her sides with her eyes pointed to the heavens. Frost bites her skin and clothes.  
  
He rushes forward, cursing, but when he tries to reach out to her his hands hit ice. It surrounds her, frosting her hair and skin. He tries again but his knuckles collide with the ice, this time breaking skin. Blood smears the surface, leaving evidence.

The sound wakes her and she glares at him, eyes angry and sad and confused. Her mouth in a firm frown. Her anger makes him breathless. Dizzy. Makes the fury and grief and frustration that he's trapped in his chest want to tear past his ribs. When he looks into her eyes he sees the same suffocated flurry of emotions reflected back at him. He wishes Sam were alive just so he could scold him for all the broken things he left behind. For leaving him behind --

The scene changes. He’s on the couch, blankets splayed across him as it would be any other night. But this time there’s no one in between.

There’s something about how the air sits, how the moonlight flits through the window, that tells him that this is still a dream. Somewhere deeper into his mind. There’s a strange clarity to knowing he’s in a dream, like the weight of reality lifts from his chest.

A happy hum sounds next to him, buzzing against his shoulder. He finds Elena’s face resting there. Her dark hair is disheveled and her limbs are stretched out over him. She’s wearing purple, like she always is in his dreams, but this time it’s a thin nightdress that barely covers her.

Elena, he says quietly.

She opens her eyes, revealing the crystalline brown that always captures him during the day. A small smile stretches her lips. Beautiful. She’s always been so beautiful.

Her hand moves up his chest, to his neck, then cradles his face. Her warm breath fogs his skin and his heartbeat thumps. There’s a definite tension coiling his his stomach, a knowing tightness to his muscle that recognizes his desires surfacing in front of him.

Elena lifts herself up to straddle him, eyes locked on his.

He swallows, his breathing labored as his mind tries to fight it. To fight what’s been lurking inside his gut just as his body must during the day.

But he should know lies don’t work here.

He can feel that she’s bare beneath her nightdress. The heat between her legs touches his thigh and he groans, shaking now as she leans down to face him. Her hair curtains them at one side and she presses her forehead to his.

Her hips rock against him and he lets out a strangled noise. His hands jump to her hips, crushing his fingers against her skin. But instead of stopping her like he thinks he will, he pulls her down, grinding up into her with an agonized grunt. She pants in response, but he can feel her smile against his neck as she leans in close.

His entire body clenches. _Goddamnit. Goddamn you_.

He growls and rolls her onto her back, pinning her down with his hips. A wildness roars in his chest at his surrender and Elena looks up at him in wonder, as if she too had been waiting for him to let go.

Dean shoves down his boxers with ease, lifts her nightdress and unceremoniously shoves into her. She moans, tightening her legs around him and he holds her close. The heat in him burns so hot that he can already feel the sweat forming on his back. The sound of her hoarse voice makes him harder, makes him want to pull that sound from her throat again. He wants to fuck all the cold from her body. He can’t stop because he craves more-  
  
Dean inhales sharply as wakes. His entire body is tensed and tight with dread. It takes several moments for his heartbeat to settle as sunlight rises through the window, spilling in between the blinds. Anna’s slumbering figure lies peacefully at his side.

He’s still hard, and a mounting frustration builds in his gut as the weight of reality crashes back onto him. He sits up and spits out a curse, clawing a hand through his hair. This house is making him crazy.

* * *

  
  
Jessica places a small cup of coffee onto the table and neatly slides forward a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Elena finds herself staring at the woman's hands. She didn't know hands could be that pretty. Just like the rest of her small apartment, her hands are pretty - not in the smooth, untouched way, but in a lively, expressive way. She wonders if Sam ever thought about putting a ring on it.  
  
"So, Elena," Jessica says nervously. Elena lifts her eyes to meet hers, finding a kind, yet hesitant smile. "You're a doctor?"  
  
"Resident," Elena replies, making an effort to sound friendly. The last time she socialized with anyone outside of the three men at home was at Sam's funeral. Words don't come as easily to her as she would like. She's grateful, however, that Jessica's son is in school at the moment. Elena doesn't know if she can handle that quite yet. She picks up a chocolate chip cookie. "I'm, uh, working my way towards neurosurgery."  
  
"Wow," she says with an impressed eyebrow raise. "That's amazing. I can imagine the couple you and Sam would have been. A lawyer and a surgeon. That's every parent's wet dream."  
  
Elena laughs, which seems to take Jessica by surprise because her eyes widen and she grins.  
  
"What do you do?" Elena asks then, careful not to put too much weight on the question. She doesn't want her thinking that she's judging her.  
  
"Oh." She blushes a bit. "When I was in high school I had dreams of being a lawyer but when I had Noah . . . it just wasn't doable. So I finished high school. Now I waitress down the street and substitute teach on the side. My parents help out when they can, and Sam's been so good about supporting us."  
  
The woman looks down at her lap, fiddling with her cup of coffee. Elena wonders why it is that Dean wanted to keep Elena away from her. Jessica is certainly a bit frazzled at times but she's far from fragile. The woman's been raising a child on her own since she was seventeen for God's sake.  
  
Then it occurs to her that maybe Dean is protecting _her_ from Jessica. That he thinks that she's the one who's fragile. Who can't talk to the mother of her dead fiance's child without shattering.

So this is why he's been so kind to her for that past several days. He pities her. And now he sees how much she likes him and wants to stop her from getting the wrong idea. That’s why he’s been so distant. The thought makes Elena grip her cookie so hard that it snaps in half.  
  
She swears under her breath and quickly shoves the cookie in her mouth to cover up for her fumble, dropping crumbs all over her lap. Chocolate smears her hands. Jessica snorts, and Elena tries not to laugh herself.  
  
"It's delicious," she says between chews, accepting the napkin that Jessica offers her.  
  
She flashes Elena a knowing smile. "Were you thinking about Sam?"  
  
Elena swallows, then blinks in surprise, "What?"  
  
She laughs. "Your face. You looked exactly how I felt about Sam when we dated. That man drove me nuts sometimes."  
  
Elena feels her cheeks heating. "Oh - I - yeah. Sam."  
  
In truth, Sam had been one of Elena's closest friends. They've been through a lot together, but it would be a stretch to say that he drove her nuts.  
  
Jessica nods. "I'm glad you're here, Elena. It makes me feel . . . less alone."  
  
Elena's heart melts a little bit. "I just wish Sam told me about you sooner. I would've been happy to help with anything."  
  
Jessica’s lips draw into a tight line and her eyebrows angle in worry. Wide blue eyes study her for a moment before she says, "Elena, there's something I should tell you before you're too nice to me."  
  
Her unsteady tone makes Elena's stomach turn. "What is it?"  
  
"We . . . saw each other again. After Sam found out about Noah."  
  
Her words don't register for a moment. "You saw each other?"  
  
Jessica's sickened expression and nod tell Elena everything she needs to know.  
  
"Oh," she says blankly.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Elena," she says through sniffles. "I didn't know about you, I swear. If I knew, I would never have - it was only a few times and after a while he said he would break it off -"  
  
"Wait, he-" Elena stops herself because her voice had become sharp. She feels as if she'd gone cold and been crushed into a thousand shards of ice. The single cookie in her stomach threatens to come back up. She takes a breath before trying again, "Was he the one to . . . start it?"  
  
Jessica's eyes grow wide, both horrified and conflicted. "I don't know, Elena -"  
  
"Please, don't lie to me," Elena says evenly. "I've been lied to enough.”  
  
Jessica sighs and meets her eyes, considering. Then, "Yes. He started it."  
  
Elena releases a breath. "And when you said that he was going to 'break it off', did you mean with you or with me?"  
  
Though still unnerved, Jessica seems to realize that the only thing that can help Elena now is straight answers. "With you. He was planning on breaking up with you."  
  
She feels a shiver crawl up her spine. "When?"  
  
"Last year, I think around Christmas. He started spending more time with Noah. He started talking to his brother again. He was talking about fixing his life, mending things he'd broken-"  
  
_Snow drips onto her face._  
  
"- but something happened, I guess. He stopped seeing me and Noah. Stopped seeing his brother-"  
  
_Outside. In the snow where the air is so cold it numbs skin. Numbs everything._  
  
"- and he started sending money instead of bringing it to me," Jessica says. "I just wish he warned me." She gives Elena a sad smile. "I wish he warned both of us."  
  
Elena lets out a shaking breath as her nerves rattle inside her. Her words are still processing and churning in her head. Then, with an absolute and bitter click, Elena understands why Dean had been acting so strangely. He knew. He knew everything. All of Sam's secrets, all of Elena's - this entire time he knew and dealt truth and lies to his will.  
  
She can't believe it. She can't believe that she let herself trust two liars.

* * *

  
  
Kai zips around the Christmas tree with a roll of crimson ribbon in his hands, weaving it through the branches and bristles with sloppy speed. Cas had put on Christmas music, but is sitting on the couch with a patient's file open in his lap. For this case he's coordinating with pediatrics. The hospital is forcing him to stay home for a minimum of six hours because apparently he's been at work for too many days straight. They're worried that work performance might be affected by exhaustion.  
  
But never mind them, he thinks. He wants the child to be home with her family by Christmas Eve. He chews on his pen with his eyes narrowed at the pages while Kai and Elena decorate.

Kai reaches the end of the ribbon and turns to Elena in triumph. "Well?"  
  
She checks her stopwatch. "Seven seconds."  
  
He raises a fist into the air. "That's what I thought. New champion, ladies and gentlemen."  
  
He performs a goofy dance as Elena giggles. Kai clasps her hands, pulls her to her feet and swings her around in a circle, causing her feet to knock over several ornament boxes. Cas smiles softly at them. Kai had been the only one to get Elena, who’d been sulking in her room since yesterday, to smile.  
  
They'd heard Dean and Elena's raised voices coming from the living room after she got home. When Cas asked Dean about it later he just scowled and shrugged, muttering incomprehensibly. Later, in the middle of the night Cas thought he’d heard a loud crash outside. He’d peered out the window to find Dean smashing in the garbage bin.  
  
Now, Dean walks in and just barely dodges Elena's legs as Kai swings her around again.  
  
"Sorry," Kai laughs, putting her down. An awkward silence filled only with Christmas music follows, causing Cas to glance curiously from his file to the group in front of him. Elena turns away from the other two, busying herself with sorting through a box of tree ornaments.  
  
"Do you want to put the star up?" Kai asks Dean, trying to break the silence.  
  
Dean looks from Kai to Elena's back, then back to Kai. "Sure."  
  
Kai taps Elena's shoulder, "Give Dean the star."  
  
Elena doesn't look up, but Dean's eyes are fixed on her now. From where he's sitting, Cas spots a pained expression on his face. She rifles through the box of decorations until she emerges with the topper. "Here."  
  
When he reaches out to take it from her, her stare catches on his hand as if there's something there. Elena stills upon seeing it, watching as Dean reaches upward to place the star at the top of the tree.  
  
"There," Dean says with a satisfied nod.  
  
"What happened to your hand?" she hisses as Kai resumes decorating, utterly oblivious to the tension in the room. Deciding that this isn't his business, Cas returns to his file.  
  
"What?" Dean asks. Though from his tone he clearly knows to what she is referring. Unable to help himself, Cas chances a glance in their direction.  
  
Elena holds out her hand, eyes sharp. Dean returns her stare with contempt, though he doesn't seem to have it in him to match her intensity. After a few electric seconds, he sighs and places his hand in hers. Elena pulls it toward her, forcing him to step into her space. His breaths ghost her face now as he looks down at her, watching as she inspects his knuckles by running a finger lightly over the purpled skin. Cas wonders if she knows he looks at her that way.  
  
"How did you get this?" she asks. "Did you hit someone?"  
  
He shakes his head, then removes his hand from hers. He stretches his fingers out, as if trying to force the feeling of her from his skin.  
  
Elena's eyes cut across his face. "Tell me the truth."  
  
He meets her eyes carefully, then, "I didn't hit anyone."  
  
Anger threatens to boil over and spill from her. She keeps her arms rigid at her sides as if to keep from shaking him. "Then what happened?"  
  
He offers her a look of mild impatience, letting her know that she'd just asked yet another question he doesn't want to answer.  
  
"Fine," she says through her teeth. "If you can't talk to me straight then we can't be friends anymore."  
  
His expression of defensiveness falls and is replaced by something softer. Sadness? His voice is low as he says, "I don't think we were ever friends to begin with."  
  
Her anger evaporates and is swiftly replaced by hurt. Cas knows that look. It's a look so vulnerable that she rarely shows it to anyone anymore. Not even Cas. A spark of jealousy, shoots through him. He hadn’t felt that since Sam was alive. She steps away from Dean, looking like she's about to respond when the lights flicker and everything goes black. The background hum of the house's heater ceases.

* * *

  
  
Through the darkness, Elena feels Dean's eyes still aimed at her. His breathing goes slightly unsteady. They wait several moments for the electricity to return, but nothing comes but the sound of their buzzing thoughts.  
  
She hears Cas grumble, then say, "Elena, grab the flashlights and candles. Kai, come with me to check the box."  
  
"Does this happen a lot?" asks Dean. He shifts a little closer to her as the sound of Cas and Kai's footsteps retreat in the direction of the back door.  
  
Elena turns away and reaches a hand out, feeling her way to the basement door. "It started a couple years after you moved out. Once it took an entire day for the electricity to come back."  
  
She slowly opens the door and steps through, carefully descending the stairs. Behind her, Dean's steps are equally cautious. Her foot nearly slips on a step when she hears him mutter something.  
  
"What did you say?" she asks, stopping to face him. It's pointless of course, but she frowns at him anyway.  
  
He sighs. "I said, you guys really let this place go."  
  
"For your information, we wouldn't have to deal with this if you'd just done the damn yearly inspection like you were supposed to-"  
  
"Oh, is that what Sam told you?" He demands, a spark inside him lit. She can feel his energy hitting her like a tidal wave that had been held back for too long. "Well, did he also tell you that I was the one taking care of maintenance while he was off at school and when he was locked in his room doing homework? Did he tell you that I was the only one helping our dad when the basement flooded? When the mold had to be cleaned from deep inside the walls? When that wall collapsed because a tree crushed it in a storm?"  
  
Elena turns away from him. The answer is no. Sam hadn't told her that, and she's sure that Dean knows it. But it's too late to take it back now.  
  
"Sam told me that you're financially irresponsible, you drink too much, and that you have a bad temper," she says, her heightened emotions causing her feet to stomp haphazardly as she continues down the stairs.  
  
Dean scoffs harshly, "This is coming from the woman who's hit me twice."  
  
"You deserved it. All you do is lie."  
  
"You need to stop taking your anger at him out on me."  
  
The statement is so blunt, so straight-forward in comparison to everything he's ever said to her since he'd arrived that she falters. Her foot lands badly, pitching her forward into the darkness. Her heart flies to her throat just as firm arms catch her by the waist.  
  
It takes a moment for her heart rate to slow. Then she feels the heat of his body at her back, his breath on her ear and his hands on her stomach. His breath catches, and he lets go, placing her steadily back onto the step she'd slipped from.  
  
"Watch your step," he says curtly.  
  
She huffs, glad that it's too dark for him to see the flush rising to her cheeks.  
  
When they finally make it back up the stairs with the candles and flashlights, Cas had already set up the fireplace in the living room and Kai had collected a stack of blankets from the linen closet. They were piled onto the couch - Dean's "bed" - and on the floor along with several pillows.  
  
"Slumber party at Dean's," he says with a grin. "I hope someone brought nail polish and gossip mags."  
  
Cas shakes his head, "We're going to have to stay near the fire for tonight. There's no telling how long the heat and power will be out-"  
  
"I call the spot next to the fire," Kai says dropping his pillow on the floor. "And I'm willing to scoot over a little but only for Elena. She has the least amount of insulation on her body and I can't be the cause of her death. I just can't have that on my conscience."  
  
Cas cracks a smile, "And they say chivalry is dead."  
  
"Of course I can't give her too much space because, let's be honest, I need it more than she does," Kai says. "I'm the youngest and therefore the farthest from death. You guys are old and on your way out anyway, so why bother?"  
  
At that, even Dean smirks as he moves his pillow over to one side of the couch to make room for another person.  
  
Kai grins at Elena, "What do you say, left side or right?"  
  
Elena flashes her light at his face, "I'm sleeping in my room."  
  
Kai looks ready to protest but Cas beats him to it. He stops poking at the logs in the fireplace to glare at her. "Elena, you'll freeze to death."  
  
"I'll wear layers."  
  
She feels Dean's eyes on her again and she's beat with white snow and memories of things she'd rather not think about. So without looking at him, she reassures them with more emphasis, "I'll be fine."

* * *

  
  
Sam's voice comes back to her that night. He comes with that warm energy he'd always brought with him and lies down next to her. Elena's breathing shallows. The pressure in her chest pinches at her heart.  
  
_Don't be sad_ , he says. _I'm here._  
  
_No. No, you're not._  
  
Elena sighs, opening her eyes. It doesn't make a difference in the darkness of the room, only making her feel blind as she strains against the nothingness above her.  
  
"Elena?"  
  
For a moment, in her delirium, Elena's ears have to tell her mind that the voice isn't Sam's.  
  
_It's coming from outside_ , she thinks to herself. _Outside the room, Elena. He's standing outside_.  
  
She stumbles out of bed, dragging the thick blanket with her to shield herself from the freezing cold air. She can barely feel her fingers and toes. Pausing at the door, she observes the shadow of the figure on the other side. Through the screen she can see him leaning towards the barrier separating them.  
  
Elena grabs the latch to tug the door open. It sticks as usual, and she has to put in more energy than anyone should have at this time of night to pull at it. She pulls at it so hard that the blanket falls off her body and the wood creaks.  
  
Finally, the door slides open, letting new air in with the smell of Dean's soap. It smells stronger now that he'd just been sleeping. She raises an eyebrow at him, a layer of cold sweat covering her from the effort.  
  
"Hey." His eyes search her, wide and cautious as he holds a candle up to light her face. "I, uh, heard your voice."  
  
"Oh," she says, flushing in embarrassment. "I'm sorry-"  
  
"No," Dean says, a little forcefully. "Don't be."  
  
They stand silent as Elena waits for an explanation, but for a while he offers her none. There's always something different about him in the night. His body is still tensed, but positioned as if all of the things he's trapped inside himself during the day are threatening to fly free.  
  
His licks his lips. The light from the candle between them is dim, but she sees his eyes fall to her chest briefly before he clears his throat and looks away from her. "It's fine, I was just checking if you were okay."  
  
She crosses her arms and she suppresses a shiver. It doesn't go unnoticed by him.  
  
"You're cold." He doesn't say it as an accusation or a haughty I told you so. In fact he looks angry at himself, as if he had been the one to physically force her from the heat of the fireplace.  
  
She unfreezes her stiff face and says, "I'm fine-"  
  
"Your lips are blue."  
  
"You're being dramatic."  
  
"You're being stubborn." His stare drops down to her lips and they suddenly feel like they're burning. Self-consciously, she runs her tongue over them.  
  
Dean's lips part slightly, releasing a short, wobbly exhale. The flame flickers. There's a faint haze in his eyes when he looks back at her and says, "Definitely blue."  
  
She picks up the blanket and tucks it around herself. "Fine. I'll warm up by the fire, but after that I'm back in my room."  
  
Elena shoves past him and he rolls his eyes. Quietly, so not to wake the other two on the floor, she curls onto the far end of the sofa and away from Dean's spot. She keeps her gaze on the fire, but she feels the couch dip as Dean sits on the opposite end.  
  
For a stretch of time neither of them say anything and Dean refuses to fall asleep. She just feels him looking at her every now and then. Despite the layers of pajamas and the blanket wrapped around her, she feels naked in front of him.  
  
She hates it. She hates the fact that he knows the ugliest things about her. She hates that, no matter how angry she is, she really thought they had been friends. She also hates how stupid she was to think that he might care about her. No, he's here as Sam's final lie.  
  
To - what was that phrase he used?- keep things clean and separate.  
  
"Dean?" she says softly. Both Cas and Kai are much too deep in sleep to hear. Dean looks at her, and she can feel his body tense from across the couch.  
  
"Why couldn't you just tell me?"

Dean sighs. “It’s not my secret to tell."

“Bullshit.”

He glares at her. “I didn’t want to change your opinion of him.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” she says, anger flaring. “Is everything you say straight from a bull’s ass?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth, Dean!”

“Keep your voice down,” he says, his jaw and shoulders tight. His eyes are dark as they burn into her.

Elena huffs, blood boiling. She rises to her feet and strides furiously to the kitchen, abandoning her blanket on the couch. Her skin is too hot to feel the cold air.

When the door shuts behind her she’s surprised to find that Dean had followed her with an expression as angry as hers. He stops by the door, leaving a wide space between them.

She feels dizzy as he stares directly at her, eyes alive with a fire that she’d been searching for all this time. “What the hell is your problem?” he asks.

“My problem?” she scoffs. “My problem is that you lie to me as easily as you breathe; you think you have the right to decide what I know and don’t know; you let me open myself up to you only to have you step away from me as soon as I leaned back; you’re funny and kind and ridiculous and I love spending time with you but you think I’ll stop caring about you just because you ignore me so you keep doing it; you eat way too much, you drink black coffee, and you suck at bowling and why the _hell_ do you fucking let her call you Dee? It has the same amount of syllables as Dean - IT MAKES NO SENSE.”

Dean blinks, adequately stunned into silence and Elena feels only a pinch of satisfaction. Through the darkness of the kitchen she sees pink rising to his neck and face.

“Just tell me something real,” she demands, taking a step towards him. “Because I can’t tell the difference with you anymore.”

She sees the white of his knuckles as he holds them at his sides. He searches her face, absorbing her aggression before he grits out, “You weren’t supposed to-" he cuts himself off, pushing a hand through his hair and huffing.

“Just say it,” she snaps, bracing herself.

He’s flushed, as if choking on the truth as it tries to surface. He takes in a sharp breath, eyes livid. “You weren’t supposed to have feelings for me.”

Heat burns her cheeks as the slow knife finally finishes its descent into her chest.

“Screw you, Dean.”

“You wanted the truth. Feelings are messy, Elena,” he says forcefully but his eyes plead with her. “Everything about this - us - is messy.”

She shakes her head, taking another step. “You know what kills me? You’re lying to yourself too. These ‘feelings’ that you’re talking about aren’t just mine. They're yours too.”

Dean backs into the counter, lowering his eyes. “No. They’re not.”

“Liar.”

His eyes snap to hers and he swallows. Uncertainty dances across his features. Elena closes more of the space between them until he has to place a hand in the center of her chest to stop her.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“Why not?” she whispers, inching closer so that his palm presses harder into her chest. The heat of their bodies defrost the freezing air.

His voice is hoarse. “Because if you move any closer we’ll do something we’re both going to regret.”

That makes her breath catch in her throat. He’s inches away now, searching her eyes furiously. His jaw clenches as she stares back, eyes much steadier than her heart beating rapidly against his palm.

That’s when she realizes that it’s already too late.

Without a moment of hesitation, she twines her fingers into his t-shirt, grasping the fabric hard, and yanks him down. He stumbles, hunching forward and crushing his lips to hers.

Dean is frozen for several beats. A flutter of embarrassment and doubt nearly causes her to let go, but suddenly his hands are on each side of her face. His thumbs stroke the hair from her cheeks and he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding into her mouth.

He’s kissing her back.

If his lips weren’t on hers right now she might’ve let out a shout of ecstasy.

The kiss lasts several moments before they separate, and Elena no longer needs to pull him to keep him near. He leans on her, his body pressed into hers as their foreheads touch.

She looks into his eyes and finds them dark - angry and afraid and full of want. She releases his shirt, bringing a hand up to run through his hair. He shuts his eyes and takes her by the arms, turning her so her back is to the wall. She shivers when he brings himself closer, pushing his body between her legs with such certainty, as if he’d been meaning to take his place there for a long time.

Elena turns her head away, partly because she’s dizzy and partly because she’s about to burst from his eye contact alone. This gives Dean the chance to press his mouth to her jawline, her neck, her collar, making her release an undignified moan. The second the sound meets Dean’s ears he groans and their bodies snap together like magnets and he presses his tongue to her pulse.

Elena shivers and rocks her hips against him, causing his breath to catch. He curses through his teeth. She can feel a wetness blooming between them and she can tell Dean does too because he makes a strangled sound, running his hand past her breasts and stomach and pushing beneath the waistband of her pajamas.

“ _Ugh_.” Elena’s hips jolt forward the second his fingers make contact, hot and assertive. She hooks her thigh around his waist, tightening around him like a vise. His fingers find her bundle of nerves and she lets out a shout, which he quickly kisses silent. His kiss is hard, almost angry as he thrusts a finger inside her. She clenches - her breath stops at her throat and her hips give another uncoordinated roll against him.

“Shhh,” he says, though he sucks in a sharp gasp when her hand works its way under his boxers. His hand jumps from beneath her underwear to her wrist, pulling her hand away. She looks at him in confusion but, with a small shake of his head, he moves her arms above her head and begins to thrust between her legs, right where she needs pressure. She arches her back, shaking from the pulses of pleasure, feeling his hard length through the thin layers of cloth separating them. She clenches her thighs, desperate for more and he growls, immediately accelerating his pace.

“Jesus, Dean," she says breathlessly, meeting his thrusts with unbridled aggression. She brings her lips to his ear, "Do you know how many times I've thought about you doing this to me?"

" _Fuck._ " His teeth scrape her shoulder and he lets go of her arms and puts his arms around her. He brings her closer, so close that all they can do now is writhe against each other. The fabric of their clothes rubbing against each other starts to burn but neither of them care.

His hard length digs between her legs, harder and faster and she lets out a startled cry.  _So Dean Winchester likes dirty talk?_

"Do you want to know what I imagined?" she whispers.

"God yes," he breathes immediately, frantically humping her, driving her nerves haywire. She moans, struggling to speak again.

"Every time we were alone in the car I thought of you pulling over and fucking me so hard the car shook."

He lets out a noise and Elena can tell that he's close, his rhythm faltering and his eyes shut. She holds him, letting her nails grasp at his back.

"Once I woke up in the night," Dean says softly, "there was cum on my blankets because of a dream I had about you. Every night after that I fucked you in my sleep-"

Elena kisses him, tongue in his mouth, exploring everything within her reach. The fabric between them is soaked now as their hips jerk together repeatedly, desperately. Sticking and unsticking. Their surroundings blur. The sounds they make intertwine and sharpen as the pleasure mounts, higher and higher until - _snap_. They're both coming hard in a hot, white blaze, bodies tensing against each other. 

They're covered in sweat despite the freezing temperature. Ragged breaths rush past Dean's lips as he catches his breath and looks into Elena's eyes. “Is this a dream?”

They stare at each other, his body still tight against her. He looks beautiful, freckled and breathless. And he’s touching her, desperately and urgently when just hours ago he refused to look at her for longer than a second.

“Does it matter?” she asks.

At that, the corner of his mouth tilts upward. “Of course it does.”


	3. Catch

_This must stop_ , _he tells himself. This can't go on._

_But nothing has been going on, and therefore nothing can stop._

- **Margaret Atwood**

___

  
The shirt crinkles between Elena's fingers as she folds it, a fog behind her eyes. She hardly knows which clothes she's chosen as she presses them into her bag.

"What do you mean we have to wait until Thursday?" Cas' voice rings through the freezing house. She can almost hear the crackle as his warm breath bites through the icy air. "Christmas is on Tuesday, what are we supposed to do, spend Christmas in a hotel?"

There are faint murmurs through the phone as Elena continues packing, only vaguely aware of Cas pacing back and forth behind her.

Once her bag is full, she looks through the open bedroom door into the living room where Dean stands hunched over his bag, absently placing clothes into it. From her spot on the bed she has a clear view of his dazed expression.

She smiles at the blue knit sweater that stretches slightly at his chest and shoulders. Cas had lent it to him earlier since Dean hadn't packed much more than a week's worth of clothes, perhaps planning to be back in his own home before the worst of winter hit.

He certainly didn't plan what happened the night before.

As if sensing her gaze—and train of thought—he looks up from his task to meet her eyes. She smiles.

Dean's face brightens, and he grins back, eyes crinkling and making her heart stutter. The memory of his touch ghosts across her lips, her arms, her hips. Then, as if his thoughts are mirroring hers, his smile falters. He averts his eyes.

"Okay, okay, _fine_. I'll see you Thursday." Cas hangs up the phone and cuts across Elena's view of Dean. "What are you doing?"

She blinks in surprise, "What?"

Cas gestures to her bedside table. "You're not packing that?"

It takes a moment for her brain to recalibrate. "My engagement ring?"

Cas looks at her with concerned eyes. "Are you okay Elena?"

Without answering, Elena picks up the ring. It has a simple design, a rose gold band with a small diamond embedded into the front. When she first received it, happiness had bloomed in her chest and everything in her dark life suddenly felt bright. But now the sight of it twists her heart like a used, dirty towel.

"I think it'll just make me sad," she says stiffly.

Cas offers her a soft smile. "I understand." He gently takes it from her hands and places it in the drawer. "Are you all packed then?"

Elena waves a dismissive hand at her overnight bag. "I guess."

He takes one look at it and laughs. He plucks a rainbow unicorn onesie that she'd only worn once from the bag. "Do you have any plans that you're not telling me about?"

Elena flushes, trying to snatch it away from him. "I don't know, I just grabbed some things from the closet."

He sidesteps her with a smile, one that she hadn't seen in forever. "Do you remember that Halloween?"

She rolls her eyes, "Of course I do."

"Sam couldn't make it to that party you wanted to go to, so you forced me to go instead and dress like that talking dog."

"It was cute, okay?"

He shakes his head, the smile still on his lips as he grabs her bag and turns it out. "Elena," he says, restraining another laugh. "This is bad."

She covers her eyes when out falls a cascade of costumes, work scrubs, and several pairs of socks. Only one shirt emerges.

"Not even any underwear," he notes. "I'm sure no one would complain if you walked around in this—" he picks up the slutty, serial killer nurse costume she'd worn to the hospital's most recent Halloween party.

She groans, looking at him with a mortified cringe. "I'm such a mess, Cas."

He moves to her closet, pulling out some respectable clothes. "Don't worry," he says, placing them into her bags then looking her in the eyes. His body seems to relax as he eases into his habit of helping. "I got you."

She recognizes the relief on his face immediately, and it's one that she herself has been chasing to no end: a way to feel useful—to feel as if she has some purpose other than drifting around from one grief to the next.

. . .

  
Kai doesn't need to pack much, despite Cas' orders. He had always been too up-tight about these things, too worried about things that didn't need to be worried about. But without Cas, they wouldn't have found a hotel with vacancies this close to the holidays.

"We have a friend who works there and was willing to pull some strings for us," Cas had said vaguely.

"We have a friend who works at a hotel?" Kai had asked.

Cas shrugged, a strange expression crossing his face . "We do."

Shivering, Kai tucks his sweater around himself tightly and zips his duffle bag closed. Slinging the strap onto his shoulder, he sails down the stairs with a leap, landing on the bottom floor with a voluminous _thump_.

He immediately spots Dean, who hadn't looked up at the commotion. The man stands with his arms crossed and a black look in his eyes.

"All packed," Kai announces, dropping his bag unceremoniously.

"Good," Dean says, still not looking at him.

Kai raises an eyebrow, then follows his line of sight into Sam's bedroom, where Elena and Cas hunch over a pile of her clothes, their heads angled together. Kai glances from Dean to Elena to Cas, then back to Dean.

"What's with them?" Kai asks.

Dean laughs dryly. "Cas being a fucking angel as always."

Kai brings his gaze back to Elena, who's busy pressing clothes into her bag, and Cas, who's watching her with a warm smile. Kai turns back to Dean, finding the man looking at them with a clenched jaw.

"Okay, what the hell is going on with those two?" Kai demands.

That effectively yanks Dean from his staring.

"What?" His eyes are wide, innocent, but Kai can see the defensiveness in the set of his shoulders.

"Cas and Elena," Kai clarifies, humoring him. But he knows Dean knows exactly what. "They've both been weird around each other recently."

Dean lowers his eyes, "I wouldn't know."

Kai looks at him, then notes, "Elena talks to you, doesn't she?"

He shrugs. "She talks to everyone."

"But she talks to you a lot. You guys are _always_ together," Kai notes, ignoring Dean's flinch. "What do you think?"

"I think she's a great person who has a lot of bad shit happen to her, and people won't let her forget it."

Kai frowns, unsure if the accusation is meant for him or someone else. "But she hasn't said anything to you about Cas?"

Dean shuts his bag with a violent _zip_ , and snaps, "No Kai, she hasn't." Then he takes his bag and leaves the room.

Kai huffs. "Why is everyone here so cryptic all the time?"

. . .

  
Elena yawns as they trudge toward the car. Though she usually gets little to no sleep these days, last night had been . . . particularly taxing. She glances at Dean walking silently beside her, finding his hair a bit disheveled from sleep and his eyes still puffy.

The corner of her mouth twitches up, and she suppresses a knowing smile as Kai calls shotgun and they pile their luggage, and themselves, into Cas' car. Feet on the dashboard, Kai punches the hotel address into his phone's GPS as Cas buckles into the front seat. In the back, Dean and Elena press in next to each other.

When another yawn escapes her mouth, Dean echoes her, stifling his with the back of his gloved hand. She elbows him and offers him her travel mug. "Coffee?"

His eyes flit from the mug to her face, and he smiles. "Thanks." He accepts it, his fingers brushing hers. He brings it to his lips and swallows a mouthful, making a disgusted face as he hands it back to her.

"What is this, milk with a splash of coffee?"

"And sugar."

"Of course," he smirks like it's a secret between them. The image is enough to trigger the memory him sitting across from her at the café with his green eyes on her and his mouth saying _together_. Then his breath on her lips. Then their bodies close.

The memories form a craving knot in her stomach.

"Your hands," he's saying.

She snaps out of her trance and blinks to clear his fog from her mind. "What?"

His eyes are on her bare fingers, pale from the cold and folded together to preserve warmth. "You're hands. They're cold."

She exhales a laugh and shivers. "They aren't the only ones."

That familiar, hard concern infiltrates his once soft expression. He tugs off his gloves and takes her hands gently. She watches his face as he pulls the thick fabric over her skin. The gloves are loose on her, but effective.

"There." He gives her hands a quick squeeze before clearing his throat and releasing them.

"What about you?" she asks.

"I'm not cold."

There's a heat blooming in her chest as she looks at him. "Thanks."

When he looks back at her, the warmth in his eyes pales slightly. Elena has only a moment to try to decipher it before his pained expression falls completely, like he'd just caught himself feeding chocolate to a puppy.

He swallows. "Look, Elena, I-"

"Damn," Cas abruptly growls from the front seat.

Elena looks up in surprise, her eyes meeting his blues in the rear-view mirror. "What's wrong, Cas?"

He shakes his head in frustration. "The car won't start."

"We can take Dean's car," Kai suggests eagerly, already unlocking the doors. Ever since Dean's arrival in town he's been begging to ride in it.

"Is that okay with you, Dean?" Cas asks, staring at him through the mirror.

Dean pauses to look at him with a hint of something that Elena can't quite read. The same something that charged the air back in Kai's hospital room.

"Of course," Dean says. "Why not."

Once they transfer all of their bags into the trunk of the Impala, Kai calls shotgun again, leaving Cas and Elena pressed into the back seat.

"Aren't you guys a bit tight back there?" Dean asks once they set off. The roads are relatively clear of traffic due to the descending sheets of snow.

"We're good," Cas says. "By the way, how's Anna? I haven't seen her recently."

If Dean is uncomfortable with the question, he doesn't show it. With a blank look, he says, "I guess she's been busy with work."

Cas nods, then goes on with a slight edge to his voice. "So are you two still together? If what you had was an actual relationship, I mean."

A short, dead pause fills the car. Recovering quickly, Dean shrugs, unease slipping through the cracks of his stiff mouth. "We never talked about it."

Elena shifts, a deep feeling in her gut telling her to put a stop to this line of conversation immediately. "Are you warm enough, Kai—?"

"But what do you _think_ it is, Dean?" Cas' tone is calm, no louder than usual though somehow sounding rougher. "Your relationship with her, I mean."

Dean frowns. "I never thought about it."

"You never thought about it."

"No."

Elena blanches. "Kai can you turn the radio on?"

But he's too busy fiddling awkwardly with the heater as the other two continue gruffly. Like her and Dean, avoidance was his specialty.

"What _do_ you think about then?" Cas' eyes are insistent, glaring at Dean through the rearview mirror. "Do you think about anything?"

"Cas," Elena warns. "Can we just--"

"I think that you take a bit too much interest in my personal business, Cas," Dean says.

"I take interest in my friends."

"Well, aren't you a saint?"

"I'm just saying that it's worth thinking about—especially when people can get hurt." Cas says pointedly. "People who have already been hurt enough—"

" _Cas_ ," Elena says, placing her hand on his knee. "Ease up, will you? It's a bit too early in the morning for this."

Cas notes her tired expression, then gives her a short nod. They're silent for the rest of the ride to the hotel, but she can tell by the look in his eyes that he's far from done.

. . .

  
Kai had already prepared himself to be bored this entire week. Even the prospect of getting out of the house and staying in a five-star hotel hadn't been enough to liven his spirits. Cas would have his head in his work files. Elena would want her alone time. Strangely, Dean is the only one who might take an interest in drinking the holidays away with him, but these days he seems too preoccupied.

But, as luck would have it, this winter break was about to turn around thanks to the red blur now hurtling towards Dean.

Kai had met Anna only a handful of times, sometimes at dinner and other times when Dean brought her over to hang out. He doesn't know much about her aside from the fact that she's allergic to peanuts and she can't tell Harry Potter from Lord of the Rings.

So when she smashes her lips into Dean's, and he takes it with less enthusiasm than a wooden plank, a slow smirk spreads across Kai's face. He glances at Cas, who flashes a mildly guilty expression before turning to Elena to pull her in the direction of the elevator.

This weekend was about to get a lot more interesting.

The second their mouths separate, Dean's eyes search for someone else's, but Cas and Elena had made it through the busy crowd of guests to the elevator.

Even _more_ interesting. Kai can hear the practically hear the _ding ding_ in his head as the dots connect and a plan forms. He refrains from letting out an evil cackle.

"What are you doing here?" Dean asks Anna, tone clipped.

Anna grins and says, "I work here, remember?" She pauses in confusion, "Didn't you talk to Cas?"

"I forgot that you worked here," Dean mutters, eyes drawing to the man in question, whose finger was jamming the elevator's UP button rapidly. Kai's never seen Cas look more guilty in his life.

Anna laughs, as if Dean were making a joke. "When Cas called and told me that you were just having trouble at home, I was so _relieved_. I mean, not about the house. I just thought for sure you were ghosting me, but now that he invited me to spend the holiday—"

"Cas _invited_ you?" Dean demands suddenly, fire crackling his words.

Kai guffaws, realization dawning on him. _Ding ding bitches_. He meets Dean's eyes with a massive smirk. "Who knew he was such a romantic?"

Dean doesn't seem to find this as amusing as Kai. His jaw flexes, and he says, "Let's just get our bags upstairs."

Anna loops her arm through Dean's, and Kai follows close behind them as they make their way to the elevator, chuckling at Dean's strained discomfort.

They catch up to Cas and Elena, who are already in the elevator. Elena chews at her bottom lip. Cas just watches her with concern, muttering several sorries under his breath. Kai gets the distinct feeling that he's missing something. One more dot that hasn't connected yet.

"Hold the door," Dean says, as it starts to slide closed.

Neither Cas nor Elena make any effort to do so. The three of them make it in only due to Anna's leg, which imposes itself into the gap to hold the door open. Once the five of them crowd in, the door squeaks closed, and silence envelopes them.

Kai watches, amused at Dean's tangible annoyance. He's gripping his bags so tightly that he'll surely snap the handle.

Mostly to clear the awkwardness, Anna begins to talk. She's on the subject of her favorite holiday tradition when Kai spots Dean glancing to the back of the elevator where Cas is whispering something in Elena's ear. It's then that he notices how close Cas is standing to her.

"—so you can't beat giving gifts." Anna concludes as Kai watches them with suspicion. "The look on people's faces when you get them the perfect thing is _priceless_. What about you, Dean?"

"Hm?" Dean says. His jaw is stiff with agitation.

"Your favorite holiday tradition?"

He forces out a gruff, "Don't know."

Cas places a comforting hand on Elena's. _What the hell_ _?_ Kai turns all the way around now, openly staring at them.

"What's going on with you two?" he asks.

Cas blinks at him. "I don't know what you mean."

"Bullsh—"

"Jesus, what floor is the room on?" Dean grumbles.

"Twelve," Anna replies.

Dean looks at the number three flashing above them and huffs. " _Great_."

Kai laughs at Cas, "I think you know exactly what I mean."

Anna goes on conversationally, "I don't know if you noticed all the commotion in the lobby, but we're hosting a wedding this weekend. Actually, all those people downstairs are probably your neighbors. Almost all of them are booked on twelve."

A lightbulb goes on in Kai's head. A wedding. Suddenly Cas' concern makes sense and Kai has to roll his eyes at his own cluelessness. He moves to Elena's other side—looks at her for a second before saying, "You need a hug?"

Elena snorts at his pitiful expression but gives him a confused look. "Uh, no?"

Kai smirks. "Would you prefer one from _Cas_?"

Her confusion deepens. "What?"

"You heard me."

Elena balks. "You're funny, Kai."

"Aren't I?" he grins, glancing suggestively from her to Cas. "Don't you think it's a bit soon to be banging Sam's _best_ fr-"

Cas reddens. " _Kai_."

"This is a nightmare," Dean mutters.

Kai's eyes widen innocently, "What?"

Elena runs a hand through her hair, dropping her gaze. "Can we not talk about this please?"

Catching up to the conversation, Anna spins around, "Oh my God, are you guys together?"

Kai barely catches Dean's muttered, "Just shoot me."

Anna turns to him and whispers, "Dean, are they together? Why didn't you tell me?"

_Ding!_ The door skids open and Elena bursts out, shoving past everyone and hurrying down the hall towards their room.

Kai stares after her shrinking figure. "What is something I said?"

. . .

  
With two queen sized beds and a pullout couch, the sleeping arrangements seem to make themselves. Kai chooses the pullout couch, stretching across it with a beer from the minifridge in hand as soon as they enter the room. Dean places his bag down on one of the beds, and Anna wastes no time claiming the other half of it.

Dean doesn't say anything. That's what's making Elena feel like she's gone insane. Like last night had only been a dream after all. A soft cloud of bliss that had burst at the slightest pressure.

He doesn't make any comment about the confusion with Anna or Cas. He barely even looks at her.

She watches Dean as he laughs at something Anna said, and a rising panic batters her chest. Stupid, she thinks. _How did I get so stupid_?

_Love makes you stupid_ , Sam laughs. _It's made you both stupid._

"Shut up," she whispers.

"What?" Cas asks, placing his bag on the second bed.

She blinks at the bag, and he looks at her with hesitation. They'd known each other well enough to have this discussion without any actual words. So she reads the question in his wide blue eyes and just smiles, tossing her bag onto the bed with a shrug. He smiles.

Maybe there's a line hovering there, one that's in danger of being crossed, but she feels too stuffed with emotions to look at it.

Her phone rings, making her jump. The caller ID flashes _Jessica_ , so she hurries to take it outside the room. She thinks she imagines Dean's eyes on her as she shuts the door.

" _Hi_ ," Jessica says, with a short laugh. " _I didn't expect you to answer_."

Elena pauses before saying, "I'm surprised myself."

" _I just called to ask what you were doing for Christmas,"_ she rushes out _. "I mean, I get it if this sounds like the last thing you want to do right now, especially after the last—well I just thought it might be nice for Noah to get to know his dad's friends and family. Sam told Noah about all of you guys. Well, everyone but—"_

"Me," Elena says, snorting. "That makes sense."

" _Right_ ," Jessica pauses, clearly struggling for words. " _I'm sorry, this was a stupid idea—_ "

"Are you trying to invite us over for Christmas?"

Jessica lets out a long breath. " _Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am."_

Elena lets herself imagine it. Herself, Jessica, and Noah seated across the dinner table from Dean, Cas, and Kai. What could they even talk about?

But then she thinks of Noah. This unknown piece of Sam that she hasn't yet met. Would he have his eyes? Will he not want anything to do with her—the girl that took his father away from him for most of his life? The thought frightens her.

"I'll think about it," she tells her. After they say their goodbyes, Elena stands in the hallway for a few moments longer, trying to will away the fear that had crawled into her chest.

. . .

  
She spends the night staring at the ceiling with determination—trying to stave off the image of Dean and Anna together just one bed over. Luckily Anna's a quiet sleeper, so all Elena hears is Dean's soft snores.

But every few moments she hears Anna shift loudly, as if to remind Elena that she's there. Next to him.

_Sure_ , she says to Sam. _Now you want to be quiet._

She sighs and rolls to her other side to face Cas. He's relaxed, so peaceful that she can't help but smile. She wishes he could be this at peace when he's awake.

Earlier in the night, he'd held her. And for a few moments, it had been nice. It reminded her of Sam, who would always hold her like that, even after they'd had an argument. But then her eyes settled on the bed across from them, finding Dean wide awake just like her.

When their eyes met, neither of them spoke. Dean just looked at her with something sad in the set of his eyes, Anna's head on his chest. The sight hurt Elena more than she expected it to, piercing straight through her like a bolt of lightning.

She'd looked away before he could see it.

Now, a thought hits her after he'd fallen asleep. It's brief, but powerful—the wish that she would've fallen for Cas instead. Then maybe she wouldn't be in this mess, wanting someone who was someone else's first. For the second time in her life.

Careful not to touch Cas, she slides out of bed, grabs her purse, and tiptoes out of the room.

. . .

  
The barman is looking at her weird, but she ignores him. She'd walked around the hotel for a while in search of a place to plant herself, anywhere that can make the night slip by faster, until she landed at the hotel bar. It would have to do.

She hadn't realized how easy Dean had made it before. How a single smile from him made an hour pass faster than a minute without.

"Winchesters," she mutters into her third shot.

She dodges another questioning glance from the bartender, figuring that her just-got-out-of-bed look is what's throwing him. She just can't bring herself to care at this point.

_Besides_ , she thinks with a frown, _there's no way I'm changing out of my pajamas just to go to an empty hotel bar where the only person here to judge me is the bartender_.

She downs another shot, giving the man a defiant look. He just shakes his head and laughs, "Honey, I can serve you one more, but that's it."

"What?" she says, outraged and probably too loud. "I've only had three!"

"Try seven."

Elena narrows her eyes at the glasses in front of her, counting. After losing count for the second time, she gives up. "Fine," she says grumpily. "But because of this you'll be losing a valued customer _for life_."

He laughs again, "Something tells me that won't be a problem."

Elena gives him her best smile. "At least sell me a bottle for the road?" When he raises a brow, she adds, "Not the best choice of words, but you know what I mean. I'll share it with my friends."

After some haggling and some rather shameless negotiation, the bartender sells her the bottle of bourbon just to make her go away. Giggling, Elena snatches it, then wanders the halls in search of another spot. She stumbles around for a good chunk of time before finding the door leading to the hotel pool.

The water is warm when Elena dips her toe in. Pleased, she sets the bottle of bourbon down next to her, strips her pajama bottoms off, and sits at the edge of the pool.

When her legs dip into the water, she sighs. In the water, she sees the reflection of the twinkling lights strung up above. The shadow of her face hovers there like a ghost.

She's not sure how long it's been before she hears his footsteps. She'd recognize his familiar tread anywhere. He, too, appears unsurprised to see her there.

"Can't sleep?" he asks.

Without answering, she looks up at his face. He's shrouded in the shadows of the room, but the faint glow of the lights softens the harshness. His expression is exactly what she expects, maybe even worse, the slant of his eyebrows apologizing before his mouth can even try.

"Elena, I—" he struggles for a moment, grappling for words enough to wipe away the ugly thing that was polluting the air between them. "I didn't invite her to stay with us."

Elena laughs, and he frowns, eyeing her carefully. His sense of humor has significantly depleted since this morning. Serves him right.

"I know, Dean. I'm not mad at you, don't worry."

But that only disturbs him more. "You're not?"

"I'm not!"

He looks her over again. "You're drunk."

She nods. "Drunk."

When she looks at him again, she finds him watching her with concern, a deep concern that sends cold sadness running goosebumps along her back. She can feel that concern aimed at her even as she turns away from him, unable to bear it pressing against her skin.

It reminds her too much of pity, and pity causes doubts to stick her like pins, tainting everything that had happened between them last night.

She hears his intake of breath, indicating that he intends to say something more, but she's not ready for this conversation.

"You want a drink?" she asks.

He glances from her face to the bourbon she'd extended towards him. Hesitation dances across his features.

"Come on," she says with a half-smile. "Dean Winchester refusing a drink?"

He rolls his eyes, and the concern melts away. Taking the offered bottle, he tips it back and swallows. When he hands it back to her, his posture seems adequately more relaxed than it had been when he walked in. She pats the space next to her with a smile.

He chuckles softly. Then, rolling up his pants to the knees, he joins her, dipping his legs into the warm water. Their shoulders tingle against each other, and she has to fight back a shudder at the memory of his heat on her skin. Of words whispered against her neck.

"You want to play a game?" she asks suddenly.

He raises an eyebrow, a hint of alarm on his face. "A game?"

"A drinking game."

He pauses, uncertain. "I don't know if that's—"

"Stop," she says, splashing water at him with her foot. "No dancing around it. Do you want to or not?"

He looks at her as if she were a dangerous creature whose behavior he hadn't the ability to predict. After a pause filled with all the potential things that could go wrong, he gives her a stiff nod. "Okay. I'll play."

She smiles at him. "Truth or dare?"

He blanches. "That's not a drinking game."

"If your opponent completes the dare or tells the truth, you drink. If you concede or get caught in a lie you have to drink. Simple."

"We're gonna get real drunk real fast."

"That's the point. Truth or dare?"

Looking as if he already regrets his decision, he huffs. "Dare."

She eyes him thoughtfully, and he shifts nervously under her stare. Finally, she smirks and says, "I dare you to sing to me. Serenade me."

Sam's laugh echoes softly in the back of her head. _He's a terrible singer._

Dean's eyes widen in surprise, then he barks out a laugh that sounds both amused and relieved. "You're fucking shameless."

What did he think she'd ask? She lifts her chin. "I'm waiting."

Dean grumbles several expletives before asking, "Any requests?"

She grins. "Surprise me."

He rolls his eyes then takes a deep breath. He begins singing with such abrupt theatrics that Elena jumps.

" _Why can't you see what you're doing to me? When you don't believe a word I say?"_

The notes are so off-key that it takes her the entire verse to recognize the tune. When she does, Elena tries her best to retain her composure but fails miserably, bursting into fits of giggles. Dean gets on one knee beside her and places a hand over his heart:

" _WE CAN'T GO ON TOGETHER WITH SUSPICIOUS MINDS. WE CAN'T BUILD OUR DREEEEEAMS, ON SUSPICIOUS MIIIIIINNNDDS."_

Elena snorts at the exaggerated emotion in his voice, grinning like an idiot as he finishes with the chorus and takes a short bow.

"Beautifully done, sir," she says, taking a hearty swig of bourbon. He returns to his seated position beside her, feet in the water.

He performs a miniature salute. "Glad to be of service, my lady." He turns to her, face flushed. "I believe it's my turn now."

She sobers slightly. "Do your worst."

"Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

Dean's eyes flicker with unidentifiable emotion before it's smoothed over with a smile. A pause, then: "Describe your first breakup."

_He's going easy on you_.

She doesn't know if she finds this sweet or annoying. "High school. His name was Stefan. Things got way too serious way too fast. He thought he knew what was best for me all the time. I ended it in his car after the prom."

Dean groans. "Brutal." He takes the bottle of bourbon from her and swallows a mouthful.

"Not my proudest moment."

"You were a heartbreaker back then, I bet." His smile is warm when he looks at her, as if trying to imagine who she was before all this.

"No worse than you were."

He snorts. "How would you know?"

"Takes one to know one," she replies teasingly, though her words cut a bit deep. "Truth or dare?"

Dean tips his head back, taking in a long breath. "Dare."

Elena smiles to herself. She lifts one of her legs from the pool, letting the warm droplets fall from her skin. When it starts to grow chilled from the air, she dunks it back in.

"I dare you—" she meets his eyes, finding them a bit hazy, yet still holding a spark of caution. "I dare you to let me text Cas from your phone."

His eyebrows rise. "What will you say?"

"It's a surprise."

Her bright smile seems to alarm him because he squirms, his hand bracing over his pocket where his phone sits.

"Come on, Dean. Don't you trust me?"

He chuckles, "Absolutely not."

Elena laughs, and he watches her with a smile on his face. She looks at him, "Do you surrender?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "I'm not letting you win, Gilbert." He fishes his phone out and hands it to her.

She snatches it before he can change his mind. Within moments the message is sent, and she returns his phone with a wicked grin.

"Shit. I'm gonna regret that later," Dean says as she takes another satisfied gulp of bourbon. "Truth or dare?"

She gives him a pointed look. "Truth."

He shakes his head. "Of course." He looks up at the lights above them, a troubled expression crossing his features. "Why—" he shakes his head before, "What do you want for Christmas?'"

She shakes her head. "No."

"No?"

"That's not a truth or dare question, Dean."

He laughs. "Is that so?"

"Are you purposely trying to get roaring drunk or are you just soft?"

He thinks for a moment. "Roaring drunk."

_Lie._ She rolls her eyes. "Ask another question. Put some effort into it."

He sighs dramatically. " _Fine_." Kicking a leg out to slice through the water, he tries again—this time with an edge to his voice. "How long has Cas been in love with you?"

She nearly falls into the pool. "What? He's not."

At that he smirks, grabbing the bourbon and holding it out to her. "Lie."

Her mouth pops open to deny it, but she stops herself. She'd asked for the fire. She shouldn't be surprised if she gets burned.

With a playfully irritated look, she wordlessly snatches the bottle from him and tips some into her mouth. As she drinks, she feels his eyes on her, watching her with lowered brows.

She sets the bottle down loudly to swipe the seriousness from his face. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare," he says immediately.

"Chicken."

Dean turns to her with mock offense. "Choosing dare makes me a chicken?"

"Avoiding truth makes you a chicken."

He just shrugs. "Dare."

Elena sighs. "Fine. I dare you . . ." She tilts her head back, her body feeling slightly heavy and wobbly as she considers the sparkling lights. She smirks, "I dare you to let me—"

He stiffens, his jaw clenching slightly.

"—draw something somewhere on your body."

His eyebrows rise, and he snorts. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious."

He rolls his eyes. "God help me."

She laughs. "Do you surrender, Winchester?"

He sighs. "Just get a damn marker."

It takes her too long to hunt one down – partly because she's drunk and partly because she's giggling so much. After a while of her fruitless searching, Dean has to get up from the pool to help her. This only makes the giggling worsen, their wet feet causing them to slip and stumble into each other, clutching for balance. After one particularly nasty slip, Dean almost takes her down entirely.

Finally, they decide to venture into the women's locker room. At this hour it's completely vacant, and their laughter drifts around them like steam. They get momentarily sidetracked when Dean finds a purple bra in one of the lockers and pulls it on over his shirt. Elena's fit of laughter goes on for several minutes as Dean just watches her with a satisfied grin.

When they finally come across a marker, they make their way back to the pool and the alcohol. Elena stops him from sitting, facing him as she twirls the marker in her fingers and taps it against her chin, eyeing him thoughtfully.

He shifts nervously. "Where do you want it?"

Their eyes meet and something winds in her stomach. She smirks. "Shirt off."

Though looser from the alcohol, Dean blinks as if suddenly aware of their proximity. They're standing so close that if Elena were to sway a bit, she might tip into him.

He hesitates. If she were less intoxicated, she might've stepped back. Given him the space to retreat. But now the thought of doing that only irritates her.

"Are you scared, Winchester? Do you surrender?"

The hazy green of his eyes snaps to hers, a darker expression swelling in them. With a rough exhale, he tugs off the shirt.

Uncapping the marker, she leans in, placing a hand on his chest to steady herself. To steady them both. He stills, like he's holding his breath.

"Keep still," she says. But she doesn't need to. She feels his eyes searching her face as if to see if she feels how fast his heart's beating. She focuses on the small dip in the center of his chest. It's the perfect spot.

As she draws, the silence becomes a force. Like gravity or electricity crackling and pulsing between them. Her breathing shallows. There's no way he misses the way her hands waver over his skin. She has to muster the strength to focus on her task instead of the heady feeling in her body.

When she's done, she exhales and pulls away from him. She's about to ask him if he wants to see her work, but he stops her with a hand on hers.

"Truth or dare?"

She swallows. "What?"

The green of his eyes is vibrant—sharp like blades of grass in spring. "Truth or dare?"

She gives him a hesitant smile. "Truth."

He takes a moment to search her face, then asks, "Why did you kiss me last night?"

It's not what she expects. "You know why."

He shakes his head. "That's not an answer."

She stares, confused. "What are you doing?"

Dean's expression is tougher now, eyes serious. Their laughter has long evaporated. "Do you surrender?"

This isn't a game anymore. Why hadn't she noticed that? She takes a step back. That unnamed thing is back and it's burning through her chest. His eyes are accusing her of something that she can't pinpoint.

They're both breathing a bit heavily now, and she feels the urge to touch him again. To show him that this is real. This isn't a dream. Why does he keep trying to wake up from it?

"Dean?" a voice calls from the hall.

They break eye contact, and Dean takes a step away from her.

Cas emerges through the poolroom doorway, looking concerned. When he spots the two of them, his expression shifts seamlessly from confusion to realization to exasperation. A hint of irritation tightens Dean's jaw.

Cas sighs at Dean as he approaches them. "I got a text from you."

"Did you?" Dean says, his smile stiff at the corners. He's good at that. Pretending that things hadn't happened. She looks away from him as he asks, "What did it say?"

Cas raises an eyebrow, "That you needed your breasts examined because they were lactating."

Elena snorts, and Dean presses his lips together to keep the laughter in. She clears her throat, "That sounds serious, Dean. You should probably get that checked."

Dean laughs. "She's right, Cas, I think you're going to have to take a look at that."

Cas narrows his eyes at the two of them just as another voice from the hall enters their bubble.

"Dee?"

Elena suppresses a cringe. She shoots a look at Dean, who meets her eyes for only a moment—conflicted. Elena wants to place her hand over his eyes to stop him from looking at her that way.

But the look is brief, and he's turning to Anna, who is glancing at the three of them in confusion.

"Kai woke me up and said that you were all gone," she says, hugging herself as she pads toward them.

Kai follows close behind, a knowing smirk on his face as he looks at Cas and Elena. "She's a heavy sleeper," he says.

Anna asks, "What are you guys all doing here?"

"Getting drunk apparently," Cas replies, gesturing to the bottle next to Dean. Kai takes it, helping himself to the last few gulps.

Anna moves to sit on Dean's other side, sticking her legs in the water and leaning her head against his shoulder with a sigh. "Aren't you tired?"

He frowns. "Not really."

She tilts her head up and grins at him suggestively, "You know there are other _things_ we can do with our time besides drink by the pool."

Elena might be sick. Not waiting to hear Dean's response, Elena flicks Cas on his ankle and says, "Last to hit the other end of the pool gets the other's clinic duty when I get back to work."

Before Cas can react, Elena slides into the water completely. She's under for one full second before Cas joins her with a splash, then they're both hurtling towards the other end of the pool.

When she reaches the end, she surfaces and finds Cas just behind her, his t-shirt and pajama pants soaked, and his black hair stuck to his forehead.

Elena reaches over and pushes his hair out of his face. "You need a haircut."

"You guys are so cute!" Anna yells from across the pool. Kai snickers. Elena glances at Dean, expecting to find annoyance. He's told Elena probably ten times that the word "cute" is reserved for baby animals and select children. And just once had he allowed it when she'd pointed out a smiley face that appeared in the foam of her coffee one night. Any other usage is unacceptable.

But instead of finding this indignance, she gets hit with a wave of anger. The kind that only alcohol could stop him from hiding.

"We're not together," both Elena and Cas say.

Anna looks unconvinced while Dean's attention falls on Cas with a glare that might've lit him on fire had he not been in water. The sight makes something in her burn hot—but she snuffs it out before it can take over her.

"Sam would want you to be happy, Elena," Anna adds, clearly not reading the room. "You shouldn't feel bad about being with someone so soon after his passing."

_You don't even know him_ , she wants to say. _You barely know me._ But her words strike her like a splash of icy water, and the burning dies. _So soon_. She thinks of Dean's " _why_ " just moments ago. She thinks of what Kai had said in the elevator, and looks at Cas, whose face is mildly flushed with embarrassment.

_How long has Cas been in love with you_?

_Don't you think it's a bit soon to be banging Sam's best friend?_

_Sam's brother?_

A wave of shame hits her hard.

Pulling herself out of the pool, she storms out of the room, not caring that she was only in a t-shirt and underwear, dripping profusely and leaving a confused set of friends in her wake.

"Elena, wait!" Cas calls after her.

She keeps walking, but soon she feels Cas at her heels. A ragged gust of cold air hits them as they leave the pool room and she shivers.

"Don't listen to them," Cas says. "They're bored and need people to play with."

She turns on him, "What is this, Cas?"

His dark eyebrows lower. "What's what?"

" _This_. Us," she says much to loudly for the hour. Her voice echoes in the wide, empty hall. "What do you want from me?"

He hesitates, eyes cautious, "I don't want anything from you, Elena. I care about you. I want you to be okay."

She takes a breath, wrapping her arms around herself. "Your car wouldn't start this morning."

Cas freezes. "And?"

"Don't make me say it," she says, eyes pleading. When he makes no move to confess, she sighs, knowing how ridiculous this will sound. "Did you pretend that your car wouldn't start so Dean and I couldn't talk?"

"Elena—"

"Did you invite Anna here?" she demands.

He lets out a heavy breath, eyes sad. "Yes. And yes."

She shakes her head. "Why?"

"I was trying to protect you." He steps closer.

She takes a step back. "From what?"

"From him."

They stare at each other—unsaid things passing between them harshly. His stare is too bright now, earnest and blinding.

"Dean will hurt you," Cas says, voice low as he stares into her eyes. "And you will hurt him. You're both in pain—grieving. Getting involved with each other is a fallout waiting to happen. Why lose someone again?"

His words are hurting her, just as much as Dean's question did. _Why did you kiss me?_

"You know this, Elena." Cas says. "I know you do, deep down."

The words echo in her head as they make their way back to their room, as one by one each of them change their clothes and get back into bed. The happiness she'd felt at being with Dean had been brief, evaporated faster than the water on her back.

And she can't help but think that maybe Dean had been right. Maybe this was too messy for their own good.

_______

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst guys!! These two are just BAD at feelings haha. I promise the fluff and super smutty smut is coming in the next/final chapter!
> 
> Also: points to anyone who can guess what Elena drew on Dean's chest! Any guesses?


End file.
